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As the title suggests, I would like to know if it would be legal under Australian law, I am not too sure about the law and Halftracks.

I would also like to add, this vehicle is capable of the speeds you would see commonly in most suburbs of Australia, it's just not capable of highway speeds, though the road layouts would allow for you to navigate without the use of freeways, it has a theoretical speed of 76 km/h provided by an Inline-Six, 4.17 liter Maybach HL 42 TKRM engine that can output 74 kW, which powers the rear track assembly.

Though going highspeed over bumps would not be comfortable at high speed, as the rear suspension is provided by torsion bars and don't serve to absorb shock, while the front axles are tended to by Leaf Springs, which again would not be too comfortable.

Also, would and Sd.kfz 222 be legal too? This vehicle unlike the above does have four wheels, 3.8 Liter Horch V8 Petrol and weighs in at around 5 metric tons.

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    My intuition is that it won't be legal, because of regulations that require that vehicles be registered, and the absence of means of registering such a vehicle. I'll look it up a little later.
    – jimsug
    Oct 28, 2015 at 6:02
  • An edit was proposed to this question by an anonymous user which seemed to reply to my comment - that's not what edits are for, please see the help center for guidance on using this site. Thanks. Also, to address the point: the fact that there is physically somewhere to mount registration plates or that it is possible to add indicators has no bearing on whether it can legally be registered or not, although these may be requirements of vehicles that may be registered - and if you have evidence that suggests otherwise, it should be part of an answer.
    – jimsug
    Oct 29, 2015 at 13:17
  • Can you expound upon what it is you are talking about? Is it a tank? That you want to drive around as a civilian?
    – gracey209
    Nov 1, 2015 at 22:00
  • Even setting aside the registration issue, you'd likely need to heavily modify the vehicle for it to have even the slightest chance of being considered street legal. For instance, are there turn signals on that thing? Doesn't appear to be (from the picture, I can't even tell if it has headlights). Here's an article listing the minimum requirements in the U.S.. I'd imagine Australia has similar (if not more stringent) minimum standards.
    – aroth
    Dec 19, 2015 at 1:21

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As mentioned in the comments, the simple answer is 'probably not' because you probably haven't yet gotten around to taking your halftrack in to get the necessary paperwork to demonstrate eligibility for registration, even if said halftrack was eligible for registration.

I'm also going to confine this answer to whether you can legally drive the halftrack on public roads. I am not aware of any special laws about merely owning a halftrack that (say) you keep on a farm as decoration, but in any case I think you are more interested in whether the vehicle in question can be registered.

Vehicle registration standards are (mostly) dealt with under State and territory law. I can give you an answer for Victoria, to at least illustrate the issues and where to look for answers. However, (at least some of) the relevant standards appear to be uniform across Australia.

The starting point is that it is an offence to operate a vehicle on a public road without registering said vehicle: Road Safety Act 1986 (Vic), s 7.

The Act provides that:

  • the Regulations may prescribe how registration is applied for and granted or refused: s 9; and
  • the Minister may prescribe standards for registration by notice in the Gazette: s 10.

The standards cover "the construction, efficiency, performance, safety, design and equipment of, and the method of identifying" vehicles.

I'm not good at searching Gazettes so I'm going to wave my hand over a gap and skip straight to things like:

This is one of those areas where you probably need a mechanic more than a lawyer.

Once you have satisfied yourself that your halftrack meets the applicable standards, you need to go and get a 'VASS Approval Certificate' ('Vehicle Assessment Signatory Scheme') from a certified tester and then register the vehicle with VicRoads.

Happy driving!

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