German Half-Track

[Mike Kelly]

I was reading Norm Darwin's thesis:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/159140472.pdf

Norm mentions the German Half-Track on page 328, the engine from this vehicle was used as the donor engine for the famous Maybach racing car here in Australia.

The actual Half-Track itself was a Demag and the remains of it was discovered up at Kaniva in N.W. Victoria in the early 1980s. I remember driving up there and visiting the remote wheat farm where we spoke to the farmer who had purchased the Demag after the war. Sadly, he had cut the forward hull section off with a chisel , fitted a A model Ford engine in the very rear of the tracked section, and used it as a crude tractor. There were various Demag bits still in his shed, he showed us the Demag tool lockers and other bits he had saved and repurposed into something useful for his farm. The original transmission was still sitting in the hull with the fancy power assisted shifting system. Later on during the cleanup we found some German 9mm rounds sitting on the hull floor.

The forward hull section showed obvious damage from a mine blast with many splintered holes through the floor.