Horstman, a company of the RENK group, has supplied a refurbished AVDS-1790 engine to help keep The Tank Museum’s M60 running.
The M60 was the backbone of the American armoured force from 1959 until the 1980s.
Head of Collections, Chris Van Schaardenburgh, said, ‘The Museum has two M60s, one as a reference vehicle and one running M60. Due to an engine failure in the running M60, we temporarily used the engine from the reference vehicle, which wasn’t ideal, but this kind donation from Horstman, means we can now showcase this key vehicle from our historical collection in the arena.’
The M60 was the standard American tank for most of the Cold War and was the ultimate development of the Patton family of tanks that stretched back to the M26 of 1945 and has itself served for over 40 years with a wide range of nations, seeing combat with several nations.
Horstman led the development of the independent suspension bogie in the 1920s. First used on the A6E3 Medium Tank prototype in 1935, their system proved far superior to the Vickers box bogie system originally fitted to the tank in 1929. Suspensions developed by Horstman were used on several Second World War designs including the A9, A10, Valentine and Centurion tanks and the Universal Carrier. The last tank to use this basic mechanism was the Chieftain, designed in the late 1950s and its influence features on many of the tanks and wheeled vehicles that are in the Museum’s collection.
The engine will be fitted in spring by the workshop team.
