This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Redwood City, Calif. • A company headed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has filed a lawsuit in the San Francisco Bay Area over a World War II-era German tank it says it paid $2.5 million for, but never received.
The Panzer IV tank was part of a fleet of military vehicles amassed by Stanford University-trained engineer Jacques Littlefield. His family turned them over to the Massachusetts-based Collings Foundation, which put some of them up for auction in Portola Valley in July.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Mateo County, Allen's company, Vulcan Warbirds, says it was later told there had been a misunderstanding and the foundation didn't want to give the tank up.
Collings Foundation CEO Rob Collings told the Palo Alto Daily News (http://bit.ly/1pWSlM5) the tank was never sold.