She's not pretty and she's buxom. Yes, heavyset, according to the man who loves her most.

But she still turns heads. Oh yes! At every outing this grand, old lady of 74 years is a showstopper. People stop, people stare and people pore.

Andy Moreland is infatuated. 'I have lavished lots of money on her. Yeah, tens of thousands.” How many tens of thousands? 'Oh, I don't know. But I have got the disease bad.”

He's infected with love for seven tonnes of wartime truck, or is it a tank? An M3 half-track known officially as the Carrier, Personnel Half-track M3 – one of the most iconic vehicles used by the Allies during World War II and the Cold War.

'She's special to me, but also special to everyone wherever she goes,” says Andy.

And she will be special, a leading lady, a piece de resistance at the BOP Military Vehicle Show and VE Day Celebration on May 7-8 at The Historic Village from 9.30am-3pm daily.

'She will be running, there's no show unless she is running,” says Andy. 'We like to use her. 'That's what she's there for. It gives you a bit of a kick.”

Andy's M3 is warhorse from another time, a time of global warfare. And she will be a little bit of reality on a day Tauranga can stop to celebrate, remember and be grateful for peace.

VE Day marks the formal acceptance by the Allies of WWII of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender. The deadliest conflict of all time had claimed more than 60 million lives. And it was over.

The M3's war was in the South Pacific .But when there was no longer conflict there was no need and the half-tracker was abandoned to the corrosive sea air and jungles of Vanuatu. Until Andy's friend found it.

'This is a truck you need to have,” the friend told Andy. 'He sent me three photos of the rusting wreck. No motor, nothing. A proper mess,” says Andy.

He spent a whole lot of money buying and transporting not much really. Why? 'Because I was bloody stupid.”

When his wife Elbe saw it sitting outside his Tauwhare Military Museum workshop near Cambridge, she described it as a 'heap of bloody junk”. She suggested Andy might need his head read. Even he admits to feeling 'a bit shattered” when he first saw it.

Two years of serious and expensive restorative surgery began on the old girl. 'We found a new engine in Holland. Brand new. Still in the packing case. It had been sent to the front but never used. That was a good score.”

How much did that cost? Andy claims not to have good recall with figures. What about the overall budget? 'I just kept spending.” Then after about two years' labour and spending of course, he had a significant WWII relic to go with his other 11 significant WWII trucks.

'It's quite unique, only a couple in New Zealand.” And don't forget the troops loved them. 'They'd do anything and go anywhere. They were very practical and very versatile.”

Then Andy says make of this what you will. Did you know the M3 had hydraulic tappets which weren't introduced commercially in cars until Chevrolet brought them in during the 1960s or thereabouts.

'The M3 was way ahead of its time.” And when you start it up it purrs – 'you can hardly hear it”.

That is, you can hardly hear it guzzle gas. Half-track is a thirsty beast. Again Andy's recall conveniently fails him. 'I can't remember the fuel consumption. I just keep putting jerry cans of gas into it. I just keep doing it.”

Research the specs and you learn it had a fuel capacity of 230 litres and an operational range of 282km at a maximum 72km/h. So about one litre per kilometre. Certainly thirsty. Certainly expensive.

But it's not gas or money to Andy, its lifeblood for ‘Half-track' as she is affectionately referred to.

This is a war machine now living in gracious retirement. Twelve battle-primed riflemen won't spill from her belly, there will be no lethal bursts of canon fire spitting from a 7.62mm Browning machine gun.

There won't be casualties after another bloody exchange between Japanese and US troops on some strategic South Pacific staging post. There'll just be people at the at the BOP Military Vehicle Show and VE Day Celebration at The Historic Village fussing and fluttering over her and trying to remember what it took, the sacrifices made, to bring us our freedoms.

There she will join other military belles, jeeps and the like, silver bands, pipe bands and many, many costumes of the time for a military parade.

VE Day was about the laying down of arms. That's how it will be celebrated at the village on the weekend of May 7-8. With reflection and respect. The show is from 9.30am-3pm daily and admission is free.