7/9/04

Returning To The Biggest Little Car Collection In The World

Part 2

The National Automobile Museum is located just off the right edge of this photo, on the banks of the Truckee River and adjacent to the famous Reno arch. Visible in the background is part of the local hotel-casino empire that emerged from a failed bingo parlor that Bill Harrah opened in 1937. (Photo by Dave Wallace/Good Communications)

The more I learn about William Fisk Harrah, the more I wish I’d made an effort to interview the guy before he died June 30, 1978, during surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm. Having blown that chance, I shall resort to the published works that outlive him, along with recent e-mail exchanges with Don Garlits and Kit Foster, a member of the Society of Automotive Historians.

Among all the other accomplishments of his 67-plus years, I suspect that Bill Harrah will be remembered as a “car guy” long after guests and gamblers stop knowing or caring about the self-made man who opened his first bingo parlor in 1937. I believe this because so many of his important vehicles, memorabilia items and automotive books are preserved in a permanent exhibition in downtown Reno, Nevada. Though no longer known, officially, as The Harrah Automobile Collection, the National Automobile Museum displays nearly 200 of the 1400-plus vehicles that Harrah owned at the time of his death.

As long as he lived, Bill Harrah was a street racer whose “sleepers” were notorious around Reno for engaging unsuspecting tourists in fast cars. In late 1965, he special-ordered one of the few 1966 Satellites ever assembled with both a 426 Hemi and air conditioning. Harrah’s other “driver” was a stock-appearing Jeep Grand Wagoneer—also on permanent display here—that concealed a Ferrari V-12! (Photo by Dave Wallace/Good Communications)

More than 1000 of the rest were disposed of in a record-setting Kruse auction that generated some $41 million in three auction sessions, nearly a quarter of a century ago. The primary beneficiary of this unprecedented sell-off was Holiday Inns, which had acquired the cars—along with the rest of Harrah’s hospitality holdings—in February 1980. Hundreds of automotive enthusiasts benefited by getting an unexpected opportunity to bid on so many valuable cars, trucks and motorcycles. Incredibly, America’s greatest car collector left behind no specific instructions for his collection.