The secrets of the world’s only working Nazi Tiger tank have been revealed – in a Haynes Manual.

Usually the books are for people with second hand cars to help them fit parts and change the oil, but this edition lays bare the intricacies of Hitler’s favourite weapon.

The Fuhrer himself ordered the awesome World War Two tank to be built and it was one of history’s most frightening battlefield machines with a lethal 88mm gun.

The only one still working is in a British museum and staff there who have been studying the tank have written the manual in a style familiar with so many mechanics.

It also records the incredible history of Tiger Tank 131 that was captured after a lucky hit by a British Churchill tank in the Tunisian desert in April 1943.

The 55 ton tank itself had been paraded past Hitler almost a year earlier on the evil dictator’s birthday on April 20.

The foreword for the manual has been written by Peter Gudgin MC who was wounded by the very tank just moments before its capture.

After recovering in hospital he was asked to write a detailed report on the tank and his knowledge has been put to good use in the new manual.

The book uses photographs to take the reader around the inside and outside of the tank, into the engine and through its weapons systems.

It details how it is looked after and tells why the experts at Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset have chosen to run it.

Of six in the world it is the only one that moves and the secrets unlocked by the staff at the museum mean it is the most comprehensive examination ever of the Tiger tank.

Available now, the Haynes Owners’ Manual is set to become a best seller – both here and abroad.

The manual was written by museum curator David Willey, historian David Fletcher and museum workshop manager Mike Hayton.

Mr Willey said: “Tiger 131 is probably our most famous exhibit and is the only working Tiger tank in the world.

“Its history is well documented and after its capture Churchill and the King were pictured with it.

“In total there were 1,300 produced, which compares with 50,000 Shermans.

“This one was given to the museum in 1951, but it hadn't been put back together properly after it was dismantled and examined.

“In the 1990s we received grants to help us begin a restoration project and we are now in the second phase of the project and we are working from original German drawings.

“The Haynes manual describes the tank’s history, why it is here, why we run it and explains the restoration.

“It describes the start-up procedure, tells what it’s like to drive and explains lots of the little details we have discovered, such as what all the stamps mean.

“We have had longer to study it than the Germans did, so we probably know more about it than they did.

“We have the original German user’s manual and have used their original drawings which look like they were done for the purpose of this Haynes manual.

“The Tiger tank is superbly engineered and was a fearsome fighting machine, but we mustn’t forget what harm it did.”

The Tiger Tank Owners’ Workshop Manual is available from June 2 from The Tank Museum, and all good bookshops, priced £19.99