The National Automobile Museum (the Harrah Collection) in Reno, Nevada, opened in 1989. Most of the collection is based on Bill Harrah’s (gaming pioneer and avid collector) automobile collection. Following Bill’s death in 1978, the Holiday Corporation bought Harrah’s Hotels/Casinos and more, including the collection. Then Holiday announced they were going to sell the cars. This ticked off Nevadans, so the governor stepped in and helped negotiate a donation of the cars by Holiday to a special non profit organization established for the purposes of a museum.
The museum was named among the top ten museums by Car Collector magazine, has been ranked as one of the best 16 car museums in the world by Autoweek, and has been selected the best Museum in Northern Nevada in Nevada Magazines’ Annual Readers Poll.
The collection appears to have only two jeeps. One is a slightly modded CJ-5; the other is a Wagoneer that was outfitted with a Ferrari engine and called a Jerrari.
Here is the Jerrari as photographed by RenoDesertFox from Flickr. Note the color of the first image is the correct color and the remaining images have had the colors tweaked by the photographer, but still show a good deal of detail.
1. Front view of the Jerrari (link to original)
2. Color has been tweaked. (link to original)
3. The Ferarri engine. (link to original)
4. Click on the image to more easily read the history. (link to original)
1. Here is the one image I have, again via RenoDesertFox, of the 1972 CJ-5 on display. (link to original)
