SAN JOSE, Calif. —
The family of a Silicon Valley engineer who amassed one of the nation’s most extensive historic military vehicle collections is giving the tanks, missile launchers and armored vehicles to a Massachusetts-based museum that will preserve and display some of them.
Until now, the $30 million fleet of tanks has been refurbished and housed in seven storage sheds on a family estate up a winding, forested road above Silicon Valley; they are visited only under privately arranged tours.
But in a deal inked on July 4 and announced Monday in honor of Veteran’s Day, the 240 pieces have been signed over to The Collings Foundation, which preserves historical military aircraft and now plans to add a new military vehicle museum at its Stow, Mass., headquarters.
Foundation director Rob Collings said the organization hopes to raise $10 million to build the museum by auctioning 160 of the military vehicles in August 2014. Eventually he hopes visitors can learn U.S. history through a chronological walk past the remaining 80 historic military vehicles.
“They’ll start in the World War I trenches and go forward through time,” he said.
The collection was assembled by Jacques Littlefield, a Stanford University graduate who left Hewlett Packard in
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