8/30 - National Automobile Museum in Reno

We made it to the National Automobile Museum today as planned. The traffic here is really wild.....very fast with vehicles darting in and out like mad hornets. We're glad we're leaving tomorrow and to be heading away from the city instead of through it.

The museum is listed as one of the five best automobile museums in the country. It certainly appeared to be deserving of the name. It consists of roughly 175 vehicles from the personal collection of Bill Harrah, founder of the Harrah's Hotel and Casino organization. His collection was up to 1400 vehicles when he died in 1978. It's strange that as such an avid collector and restorer of vehicles, not to mention being a very astute businessman, he made no arrangements for what would happen to his collection upon his death. Holiday Inn acquired Harrah's (the business) which included his car collection. They donated most of the 175 to the museum and sold the rest.

Harrah focused his collecting mainly on vehicles that were best-of-a-kind or one-of-a-kind, including some which were famous for one reason or another. This is the 1949 Mercury driven by James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause." 

1910 Oldsmobile Limited Touring, 7 passenger. This was a huge vehicle then and still is today. The wheel height is 42 inches which required a double-step running board for passengers to get in. The wheel base is 130", about the same as a new Chevrolet regular cab long bed pick-up. Its cruising speed was 60 to 70 mph. That doesn't sound very appealing knowing the condition the roads were probably in back then.

1913 Stutz Bearcat, the best known American sports car (pre-Corvette). A bright red Stutz Bearcat was F. Scott Fitzgerald's dream car. Images of flappers and Prohibition.

This is a really strange one....a 1938 Phantom Corsair. It was designed and built by Rust Heinz, a member of the Heinz 57 family. With a top speed of 115, it was way ahead of its time with numerous features and accessories which weren't put on cars until decades later. It was featured in the 1938 movie, "The Young in Heart," as the Flying Wombat. 

Another very unusual car, a 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost assembled with full sheets of solid copper. The beautiful wood trim is made from makash ebony. Historical records show the coachbuilder had to buy an entire tree to obtain this rare wood. 

Long before RVs came along, this 1921 Ford Model T Kampkar was available. The body was an accessory that could be attached in a few hours. It could carry 6 passengers and sleep 4 (the other two had to fend for themselves). It had a table, 2-burner stove, 8-gallon water supply, food lockers and storage for blankets, clothing, cooking and eating utensils. What more could one want?

Last but not least, the 1907 Thomas Flyer that won the 22,000 mile 1908 New York to Paris race. The race started in New York City on February 12th, going from there to San Francisco in the winter which had never been done before. The next leg was driving across Japan where cars had never before been seen, then across Siberia, Manchuria, Russia and Germany with the Thomas Flyer arriving in Paris 169 grueling days later on July 30th. The impact of the race did wonders for the fledgling auto industry, not only increasing the prestige of American-made cars, but showing that they could be a year-round mode of transportation and an efficient and reliable means of long-distance travel.

One of the things Bill Harrah was most intent on was restoring vehicles to their original condition. When he got this car it was in terrible shape. His shop restored it to the condition it was in when it won the race, not to how it would have looked when it was new. 

We thoroughly enjoyed the museum. Had it almost all to ourselves, too. 

Tomorrow we head east 310 miles to Elko, Nevada, for a one-night stop on the way to Salt Lake City.