For some years now the Sandstone Heritage Trust has worked closely with the Armour Museum in Bloemfontein to identify historically significant Classic Military vehicles to rescue them and to restore them to working order. From time to time special events are held which showcase these vehicles to the general public. This is in line with the Defence Force's desire to be seen as a valuable contributor to society in many different ways. We are currently working on an expansion of our relationship with the museum and this will be reflected in more news on Classic Military Vehicles on our web site.
Our pictures give an indication of the vehicles which are jointly owned and operated by the School of Armour and in association with our Narrow Gauge railway and in association with some of South Africa's top vintage and classic aircraft, many of which have a military origin. Our photographs show both a Tiger Moth and a pair of Harvards which joined us recently for one of our joint military vehicle displays. It is our intention to further develop our relationship with organisations such as the Harvard Club of South Africa and the Tiger Moth Club of South Africa.
Visitors to Stars of Sandstone 2017 will recall the immaculately restored Marmon-Herrington Mk IV Armoured Car from Andy Selfe that featured at the event. Now Andy has taken on a new challenge with a project to restore two of Sandstone’s Ferret Armoured Cars. The two vehicles were recently moved from the Eastern Free State to Andy’s premises in the Western Cape. A new blog has been initiated for this and you can follow progress by clicking on the link below.
We have put together some fact sheets on our Military Vehicle collection.
Click the below links to view :
Casspir
Eland
Ratel
Rogers Tank
Samil 50
Samel 100
Saracen
Sherman Tank
Eland 90
Ferret
Field Kitchen
QF 3,7 AAG
Marmon Herrington Mk4 Armoured Car
For the latest update on progress, click here.
There two more updates on the blog
Marmon Herrington Restoration. You can follow all the updates on this exciting project by clicking on the link below :
A further update on the Marmon-Herrington restoration. Click on the links below to YouTube to see her running.
https://youtu.be/Nf0FH_g4P5c
Andy Selfe has made some significant progress on the Marmon-Herrington armoured car restoration over the holiday period. Click here to see the updated blog.
http://armouredcarmk4.blogspot.co.za
After a gap of some weeks, some progress again, this time on the front brakes.
Click on the link below to see the full story.
http://armouredcarmk4.blogspot.co.za/
On 10th July 2015 a group of 1SSB headed by Fanus Buys came for a walking tour. They were amazed to see all the collections of old vehicles, tractors and military vehicles. They took a lot of pictures. They were in love with this place, saying it’s wonderful and clean. After their enjoyable walking tour they made a braai at waenhuis. They said they will come back again. Here are some photos.
The Sandstone Heritage Trust Military Division has acquired a very useful ex British Army, ex Iraqi War, recovery vehicle. The primary reason for acquiring this is not to represent it as a particularly important military vehicle, particularly due to the fact that it has limited African connections, but more as a practical device.
This particular truck was designed to operate under combat conditions and can load or off-load 16-tons of ammunition or other materials in a very short space of time. This has practical benefits for us in an operational sense on a big arable farm and therefore it is another example of how Sandstone attempts to use Heritage items for the benefit of the business overall. In other words, our Heritage assets are being trained to pay their way.
The sun doesn't often set on Sandstone's restoration programme in the Military Vehicle department of our Heritage collection. A scrap diesel refuelling tanker was located some time back in the yard of a dealer in these items. It has now been completely rebuilt and restored and is ready for use. In this case it is being towed by an entirely original Buffel Troop Carrier which is able to double up as a security vehicle for the Security Department and can refuel agricultural machinery in the field at the same time. It is very much a case of using top quality Military technology to further the crop production programme.
