Vehicles are repaired and serviced on site, in full view of museum visitors. Some are loaned out for special events, requiring them to be kept in perfect running condition. (Photo by Dave Wallace/Good Communications)

“Nearly 1500 cars was too large a collection for anyone, even Bill Harrah, to look after and display,” in the opinion of historian Foster. “I am told that many of them were simply warehoused or even left out in the (admittedly-fairly-benign) Nevada elements. Thus, the auction sell-off actually put many of these cars back into circulation, in the hands of people who would love them individually and, hopefully, restore them or at least use them.”

In his definitive Harrah biography, “William Fisk Harrah: The Life And Times Of A Gambling Magnate”, Doubleday, author Leon Mandel revealed that Harrah’s seventh and last wife, Verna, had urged her husband to add a provision to his will preventing whoever acquired his company from selling the collection:

“’I’d never do that,’ he answered. ‘That’s my thing, not theirs. They should be able to do whatever they want.’”

The fourth (of seven!) Mrs. Harrahs was singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry, whose sole country-crossover hit, “Ode To Billy Joe”, is still heard on the radio. The marriage didn’t last as long: Only four months after this 1969 cake-cutting ceremony, the odd couple separated.

“Verna was incredulous. ‘You’d sell those cars?’”

“’Yeah, but I’d probably start all over.’”

The late Mandel, a longtime Reno resident and the universally-respected editor of Autoweek, was among the journalists and civic leaders who led the charge to (A) persuade Holiday Corporation to donate some of the most-important vehicles to a permanent museum and (B) solicit donations of sufficient money and real estate to erect and maintain a new home for the survivors. A nonprofit organization was formed and, eventually, raised approximately $10 million. Finally, in 1989, the National Automobile Museum opened across the street from Harrah’s Hotel. The single-level building boasts 105,000 square feet of display space and more than 200 cars, trucks and motorcycles representing the entire existence of the automobile, including significant race cars. Two survivors from the original collection are Don Prudhomme’s world-beating 1975 Monza and Don Garlits’ late-1974-model fueler, which was seen mostly at AHRA Grand American Series events, and helped clinch the AHRA points championship.

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“It was not a good car,” e-mails Garlits about one of his few surviving dragsters not spending its retirement in Ocala, Fla. “I only ran it several times before Bill Harrah called and wanted to buy it. I sold him Swamp Rat 20 over the phone, after a visit to his museum during 1974. He wanted a Garlits car and agreed to take one that did not run. He generally wanted all his exhibits to run as they did when they were in service. He sent a truck to Seffner and picked up the car as a static display. The price was $7,500. He didn’t lose on that deal!”