Keeping the Past Alive: Historic Vehicle Restoration in the Michigan National Guard

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan is a state renowned for building vehicles. The cars that rolled off its assembly lines became so beloved that repairing and restoring them developed into a hobby and automotive culture all its own.

Some enthusiasts restore classic cars. Others rebuild motorcycles, tractors or farm equipment. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that in the state once known as the “Arsenal of Democracy,” some craftsmen have turned their attention to restoring something a little heavier: battle tanks.

That unusual corner of Michigan’s restoration culture can be found inside the Michigan National Guard’s Combined Support Maintenance Shop (CSMS) at Joint Force Headquarters in Lansing, where Sgt. 1st Class Ian Skidmore stands beside a faded green M103 heavy tank built during the early years of the Cold War and awaiting a new lease on life.

“In this job, you need to be able to grind, or weld, or fabricate,” Skidmore said. “But those things can be taught. What can’t be taught is the passion to do jobs like this.”

Skidmore is the small shop chief, supervising Soldiers with military occupational specialty 91E, allied trades specialist. His Soldiers fabricate, repair and modify metallic and nonmetallic components to keep Michigan National Guard equipment operating reliably.

Welding a small metal bracket, repainting a vehicle or repairing torn canvas on a military vehicle might be routine work for the team. Working on a Cold War-era heavy tank, however, is a different kind of challenge.

“We get tasked with restoring a lot of items that sit on the state’s property book,” Skidmore said. “And this tank is still on there.”

A property book is the official record of equipment assigned to a military organization. Even when a piece of equipment has long since lost its operational purpose, it remains accountable property until it is formally transferred or disposed of. That means historic equipment scattered across Michigan can remain the responsibility of the Guard decades after its military service has ended.

The M103 was a product of the early Cold War, developed to counter heavily armored Soviet vehicles and built around an imposing 120 mm main gun. It was the last heavy tank fielded by the U.S. military before changing doctrine and technology made the concept obsolete. At some point after its military service ended, the tank entered the Michigan National Guard’s property records as stock number CNN-595964.

For years, it sat on display outside the armory in Dowagiac. When the armory closed in 2024, the tank was transported to the CSMS for refurbishment, where it will remain until another home is found.

Skidmore cautions against describing the project as a complete restoration. Most of the work is cosmetic preservation rather than mechanical repair. The team removes rust, seals openings that could allow wildlife or water into the hull, repairs or recreates missing components, and repaints the exterior.

The tank itself was thoroughly demilitarized years ago. Its engine is gone; the gun barrel has been rendered unusable and much of the interior equipment has been removed.

Armory closures have brought additional historic projects to the Allied Trades team. An M60 tank also arrived from Dowagiac, while two German artillery pieces dating from World War I and World War II came from a closed Lansing armory for preservation and new paint.

The team's attention to detail is evident in efforts to use period-appropriate paint colors and recreate missing or damaged components. Doing that accurately can require extensive research.

“This one is a special case in that it was missing an engine cover in the back,” Skidmore said. “You can’t just go down to the local hardware store to buy one, so we’re trying to fabricate one.”

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Anthony Rendon, Michigan’s Allied Trades supervisor, approaches these projects with equal measures of historical interest and practicality. The vehicles remain government property, and being responsible stewards means ensuring they are maintained — or at least preserved — even when they no longer have an operational mission.

Achieving historical accuracy can require research well beyond the shop floor. Rendon and his team consult Army museums, online archives, technical references and subject-matter experts to determine how a vehicle or weapon originally appeared.

Even something as seemingly simple as paint can require investigation. Different services, time periods and applications sometimes used different shades of the same basic color. When documentation is scarce, Allied Trades personnel may also reach out to restoration specialists in other states.

“Sometimes other states will contact us to ask what we’ve done,” Rendon said. “We’ll share what we have, and what we’ve done with them and we’ll ask what they did.”

Those unusual projects provide more than an opportunity to preserve history. Rendon said they also give Soldiers practical experience solving problems they are unlikely to encounter during routine maintenance.

If a historic vehicle is missing a component that can no longer be sourced, the team will often have to fabricate a replacement.

“Working on something different than our standard equipment can be a little more challenging,” Rendon said. “Maybe the metal is structurally a little different, or maybe it requires a different type of weld.”

Where the vehicles ultimately go presents another challenge.

Historic military equipment on public display must remain properly accounted for and periodically inspected. Qualified organizations, including American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, can request certain military artifacts through Army programs that manage the loan or conditional donation of obsolete or excess military equipment for static displays.

Some of the vehicles currently being preserved by the Michigan National Guard may eventually follow their former units to new armories. Others could find homes in communities where they become monuments, museum pieces or reminders of a local connection to military service.

For Rendon, that is part of what makes the work worthwhile. A tank, artillery piece or other historic vehicle displayed outside an armory may be one of the most visible connections a community has to the Army or the Michigan National Guard. Preserving it means preserving part of that community’s history.

“These types of projects are really fun because you’re doing something interesting and making something from nothing,” Rendon said. “When a civilian comes by they’ll look at it and say, ‘Wow, that looks really cool,’ and it’s a great feeling to know you were a part of keeping that history alive.”

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