Northbound travelers to Madera can see hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment for sale east of State Route 99 when passing the overpass construction of Avenue 12. They may now see vintage military machinery.
Three heavy combat machines sit inside 80 acres belonging to the equipment division of National Hardware Supply.
They include a prototype (demo) model of one of the first armored personnel carriers, used in Vietnam and later conflicts, and a British Army FV180 Combat Engineer Tractor with amphibious capabilities. But the largest of the three, its huge barrel pointing into the sky, is a 30-ton M44 155mm self-propelled Howitzer.
According to Vince Gagliardi, the armored vehicles were purchased from the Jacque Littlefield Collection of military equipment...