The MV Hobby, De-Mob

[jdmcm]

Even with prices at almost record highs on many of the collectible military vehicles there are ways for people to use their own hard work and ingenuity to participate. For example there is a group here on the west coast that has built a "replica" M10 Achilles tank destroyer. They began by salvaging a fabbed up tub from a scrap forestry yarder that itself used surplus Sherman running gear, and from materials they had around they built a fantastic homage to a WW2 tank destroyer. From 50 feet away you would be hard pressed not to believe it was real. Now I'm sure the rivet counters will deride it for being an imposter, and the value to a collector is negligible, but the fun factor is off the charts! And they didn't need to spend a quarter million or more dollars to do it. With the technical skills I see the young crowd applying to customizing their cars, trucks and motorcycles, they are well capable of building a variety of replica vehicles that would otherwise be unavailable to most of us. Now changing people attitudes toward "replicas" and welcoming these as legitimate representations of the hobby is another matter....