If you ever find yourself in Reno with a couple of boys, definitely visit the National Automobile Musem. It contains many cars from the private collection of Bill Harrah, the casino mogul. An avid collector of cars, Mr. Harrah was embarrassed to discover that while at a car show, he learned that one of his restored cars contained parts that were not authentic to the car. He decided to build a library containing the specs of all collector cars, and also build an assembly line in Sparks to facilitate the authentic restoration of collector vehicles.
When he passed away, he left an estate of over 200 million dollars. This included something like 1200 cars. The cars were sold to the Holiday Inn chain, who planned on selling them. The people of Reno found out and were outraged. A non profit organization was founded and Holiday Inn donated 175 of Harrah’s cars to the organization.
The museum is arranged in about four or five galleries, each dedicated to a particular time frame. I am providing you with just a small sampling of the cars, and had a hard time deciding which ones to post; the boys wanted me to take pictures of so many!
The first exhibit we saw was dedicated to Alice Ramsey, the first woman to drive across America. She drove with three of her friends. I think it would be fun to recreate this trip some day with three of my girlfriends! Of course, it would be much easier today!
The boys in front of the 1981 DeLorean,,,
Modeling in the Model ‘T’. This is the only car that you can touch. They had a bunch of hats and props for picture taking…
Movie starlet, Mary Pickford’s car. Check out the rumble seat!
Other celebrity cars present include Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Al Jolson, John Wayne, John F. Kennedy, and a few more I can’t think of…
The 1921 Ford "T" Lamsteed Kampar. Seats six, sleeps four, predated the RV craze by 50 years…
1921 Rolls Royce…
1938 Phantom Corsair. This car was the inspiration for the comic book illustration of the ‘Batmobile’. This museum actually used to have the real Batmobile, but when the owner moved from the area, he took it with him…
James Dean’s car from the movie, "Rebel without a Cause.."
The "Shagmobile" from "Austin Powers" The Spy Who Shagged Me"
From the movie, "Easy come, Easy Go" with Elvis Presley…
I bet you are humming the tune right now…
This is the famous American ‘Thomas Flyer’, the winner of the Great Race of 1908! The race began in New York, across America, Asia and Europe and ending in Paris! Of the six cars that started, only three finished. Great story and would make for a good unit study. The museum has a whole exhibit dedicated to it.
This was ‘A’s favorite mobile. It is the 1960 Flying Caduceus, shown in the 2005 movie "The World’s Fastest Indian", starring Anthony Hopkins.
Cool race cars…
‘R’s favorite, The 2003 Mcmillin M/D 1, an off road race car that had a video that kept ‘R’ absobed for quite a while…
We spent an easy two hours and could have spent more. Three thumbs up. We will return.
Hi,
That looks like fun. Brandon would enjoy seeing those old car
Kristy