Given the fact that tanks are primarily designed for front-line combat, it's hard to imagine why a private citizen would buy a 36-tonne tank.

However, this is what Nick Mead of Northamptonshire, England does. Mead, is a collector of military vehicles. He is the owner of Tanks A Lot Ltd, a driving events company. Many of the military vehicles he purchased and refurbished are used for weddings, films, parties, and even funerals.

Apparently, Mead not only knew what he was doing, Lady Luck was also on his side -- when he bought a tank on eBay for £30,000 and discovered £2 million ($2,474,600) worth of gold stashed away in its fuel tank.

Mead and his mechanic friend, Todd Chamberlain, were working on the restoration of an old tank when they discovered five gold bars, weighing up to 12lb (5kg) each, inside the tank.

Nick and Chamberlain found machine gun ammunition while stripping down the tank; they were concerned that there were guns inside the fuel tank, so they decided to film themselves while opening up the diesel, in case they needed to show it to bomb disposal experts.

But instead of guns the duo found the five solid gold bars that were worth around £2 million ($2,474,600).

"We didn’t know what to do. You can’t exactly take five gold bullion bars down to Cash Converters without questions being asked, so we called the police," Nick told the press.

The pair believed that Iraqi soldiers stole the gold in the invasion of Kuwait.

They must have cut a hole in the fuel tank and rammed it full of gold bars, he added.

Nick Mead is a military enthusiast, and he is the owner of Tanks A Lot Ltd driving events company. Many of his military vehicles are used for weddings, funerals, films and parties.

In the 1950s, many T-54 tanks were given to China as part of the treaty of friendship between them and the USSR, so the Chinese copied most of T-54As features and built the first Type 69 prototypes in 1964. Starting in the 1980s, they sold a high number of Type 59 and Type 69 tanks to Iraq which were later used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

The one Mead bought with the gold bars in it was one of those Type 69 tanks.

The pair believed that Iraqi soldiers stole the gold in the invasion of Kuwait and hid it by cutting a hole in the fuel tank and ramming it full of gold bars.

Police took the gold bars away, but Mead doesn’t seem to be worried that he might lose the £2 million worth of gold that he found in the tank.

"Even if I don’t get any of the gold back, I will still have my beautiful tank," he said.