“It’s unfortunately deteriorated to a condition that if we don’t do something now we’re going to lose her, and being that it’s so rare it’s important that we preserve it.”-Steve Faccial, Flakpanzer Restoration Project, March 2017 interview with CTV

In October 2016, a World War Two German Flakpanzer-4 ‘gate guard’ had to be moved to interior storage on Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Borden.

Canadians use a German Bergepanzer (Armored Recovery Vehicle, ARV) to lift the Flakpanzer onto a flatbed trailer.

“Only two have survived the war. This is one of them. The other one is in Germany, in much better shape.”-Guy Despatie, Flakpanzer Restoration Project, March 2017 interview with CTV

The Wirbelwind is part of the CFB Borden Museum’s Worthington Memorial Park (aka ‘tank park’) collection, this is how it looked in 2004 (see more by clicking here).  Notice in 2004 it was still displayed with an open top and ‘guns’.

The flakpanzer-4 has been undergoing a complete restoration since 2017.  It’s a German designed Panzer IV that was converted to a flakpanzer, reportedly in Austria.  Before the restoration, the flakpanzer Wirbelwind had been on gate guard duty for about 70 years on CFB Borden.

Here’s a video about the running-gear:

Here’s a video for kit builders, about original paint:

Watch more of CFB Borden’s restoration projects on SABOT Videos.

Keep updated about the flakpanzer project by checking

flakpanzerrestoration.com

or

www.facebook.com/FlakpanzerRestorationProject.

Vehicle I-D:

1-148 FIELD ARTILLERY GATE GUARDS

ARMOR MUSEUM FORT LEONARD WOOD, MISSOURI