While visiting Capel Military Show in 2023, Craig Moore came across an unusual vehicle with a remarkable means of propulsion: a Linde T2KN Hydrocar bomb tractor
Igo to many military vehicle events each year, and I am always on the lookout for the peculiar and the unusual. One such vehicle caught my eye at the Capel Military Show in 2023. It was painted grey and parked in a row of army green trucks, jeeps and Land Rovers. I was soon to discover it was even more unusual than I first suspected, as it had an extraordinarily rare means of propulsion.
In 1956, the German vehicle manufacturer Linde produced their first hydrostatically driven vehicle, called the T2KN Hydrocar, in their factory in Aschaffenburg. The restored example at the Capel Military Show was the thirty-fourth off the production line. It’s owned by Sue and Terry Jupe and was formerly used by the German Air Force as a bomb tractor. Sue said: “A friend used it for a couple of years to have fun with her kids. The steering bearing broke, so we bought it from them around 15 years ago, complete with a workshop manual, which unfortunately was in German. Eighteen months ago, we decided to look around for a replacement bearing.”
Terry discovered …
