{"id":30670,"date":"2025-09-17T00:01:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=30670"},"modified":"2025-09-17T06:48:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T13:48:20","slug":"renos-national-automobile-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/09\/17\/renos-national-automobile-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Reno’s National Automobile Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

Back in the 1970s when I was in the Army, I was eligible for what the government called “Space A” flying.\u00a0 “Space A” was space availability, and what it meant is that if a US military aircraft had an open seat, I could grab it (and a free ride) to wherever that aircraft was going.\u00a0 Having never been to California (and a lot of other places back in those days), I copped a free C-141 seat out of McGuire AFB and flew to Travis Air Force Base in California.\u00a0 The plan was to fly out to the west coast and then travel by Greyhound bus back to New Jersey.\u00a0 You know, the “leave the driving to us” guys.<\/p>\n

My first bus stop was Reno, Nevada, and while I was there I visited Harrah’s auto collection.\u00a0 It was the largest car collection in the world in the 1970s,\u00a0 with more than 1800 automobiles (or 1400, depending on which source you believe).\u00a0 Bill Harrah was a rich guy with a casino and an overwhelming interest in cars of all types.<\/p>\n

Harrah passed away in 1978, and Holiday Inn bought his hotel and casino in 1980.\u00a0 The guys at Holiday Inn auctioned off the car collection, but when they first announced the sale of the auto collection, the City of Reno kicked up a stink.\u00a0 So, Holiday Inn donated 175 cars from the collection for a future auto museum.\u00a0 Those 175 cars became the nucleus for what is now the National Automobile Museum located in downtown Reno.\u00a0 Susie and I rode up there recently to explore the place and grab a few photos for an upcoming magazine article.\u00a0 We had a great visit.\u00a0 It was fun.<\/p>\n

My principal interest was the collection’s motorcycles.\u00a0 When I first spoke to folks at the Museum, I was told they only had three motorcycle (a 1946 Harley, a 1941 Indian, and a (yawn) chopper), but I found there were quite a few more.<\/p>\n

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The National Auto Museum’s 1941 Indian, with a matching sidecar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The 1946 Harley Knucklehead.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A chopper. You see one, you’ve seen them all.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our motorcycle discoveries as we wandered about in the Museum included a GSXR race bike and a full-dress Cushman scooter.\u00a0 The Cushman reminded me of my days with CSC when we first built a resurrected version of the old Mustang motorcycle.<\/p>\n

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A Gixxer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A full-dress Cushman scooter. Cushmans are cool, Mustangs are cooler.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another motorcycle exhibit included motorcycles that had been featured in different movies, including the Ghostbusters<\/em> bike and others.<\/p>\n

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Movie bikes of all flavors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Bruce Willis’ ride, a hover turbine bike. I missed this movie when it was in the theatres.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We saw the BluesMobile near the movie bikes.\u00a0 The Blues Brothers<\/em> has to be one of the best movies ever made.\u00a0 Whenever I see it on TV or on any of our streaming video channels, I’ll watch it.\u00a0 The music is incredible.\u00a0 Akroyd was incredible.\u00a0 Aretha, Ray Charles, and Cab Calloway were awesome.\u00a0 Belushi was incredible (he died way too young).\u00a0 The Blues Brothers doing Rawhide was incredible (I included a YouTube of this at the end of this blog).\u00a0 The Blues Brothers<\/em> was a great movie; I think it is one of the best ever.\u00a0 Seeing the BluesMobile from that show was a treat.<\/p>\n

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The BluesMobile. It was a featured car in The Blues Brothers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The National Auto Museum is arranged in four large galleries showcasing different automobile categories, with other collections in the hallways separating the galleries.\u00a0 The first gallery held cars from the earliest days of the automobile.\u00a0 The galleries were almost overwhelming; there was just so much to take in.\u00a0 Even though the Harrah collection downsized dramatically when Holiday Inn acquired the business, there are still a lot of things to see.<\/p>\n

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One of the Museum’s four halls, this one featuring very early automobiles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Sue chatting up one of the docents working on a beautiful Mercedes Benz from the 1930s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another of the Museum’s halls featured custom cars.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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John Wayne’s 1953 Corvette.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the “in between the main galleries” exhibits was a collection of sports cars previously owned by Paul Newman.\u00a0 The collection was later purchased by Adam Carolla and is now displayed in the Museum.<\/p>\n

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The Paul Newman collection, owned by Adam Carolla.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another gallery featured a collection of cars from the 1950s and 1960s.\u00a0 Several had my attention.\u00a0 One was a gorgeous white two-seat Lincoln Continental Mark II powered by a Chrysler Hemi engine.\u00a0 Another was a 1966 Plymouth with a 426 Hemi engine, a car I drooled over back the ’60s.<\/p>\n

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A custom 1956 Mark II.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This Mark II had a Chrysler Hemi engine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A Hemi-powered ’66 Plymouth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The ’66 Plymouth’s 426 Hemi engine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There were other cars tucked into hallway exhibits, including one I knew from my days as a very young teenager.\u00a0 It was Ed “Big Daddy” Roth’s Beatnik Bandit, a futuristic, supercharged, bubble-topped hot rod.\u00a0 One of its features was that the car was completely controlled by a centrally-mounted yoke (the yoke controlled the throttle, the brakes, and the steering).\u00a0 Revell released a 1\/25-scale Beatnik Bandit model in 1963 (I built one of the model kits).\u00a0 The Beatnik Bandit is permanently etched in my memory, and seeing the actual car was a treat.\u00a0 I had never seen it before.<\/p>\n

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Ed Roth’s Beatnik Bandit. Note the passenger compartment yoke.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A custom pickup truck powered by an aircraft radial engine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There’s a garage to the left as you enter the Museum, and there were interesting cars in there for service (I asked if I could enter the garage; the answer was no).<\/p>\n

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The Elvis Eldo, with Harrah’s orange Jerrari parked ahead of it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the cars in the garage to be service was Elvis Presley’s all-white Cadillac Eldorado.\u00a0 Another one that would make for an interesting display (and it probably is on display when not being serviced) was Bill Harrah’s “Jerrari.”\u00a0 In addition to being fabulously wealthy and the owner of Harrah’s casinos, Harrah was the Ferrari distributor for the western United States.\u00a0 He lived up in Tahoe, and coming down (or going up) the road from Reno to Tahoe can be an exciting experience when there’s snow or ice on the road (I know this from personal experience).\u00a0 Harrah had his guys put a V-12 Ferrari engine in a Jeep Wagoneer.\u00a0 You can just spot Harrah’s Jerrari in the photo (it’s the orange vehicle out ahead of the Elvis Eldo).<\/p>\n

The National Automobile Museum is a solid 10 in my book.\u00a0 We traveled up US Highway 395 to Reno (a magnificent road with great scenery through the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains), and the Museum was well worth the trip.\u00a0 Like a lot of America’s cities, Reno has become a bit sketchy and it seems its streets are overrun with refugees from the Star Wars bar scene.\u00a0 That said, we enjoyed our visit.\u00a0 \u00a0One of Reno’s best kept secrets is an absolutely fabulous breakfast restaurant (The Two Chicks).\u00a0 Their chile relleno omelet was delicious.\u00a0 \u00a0Dos Chicas<\/em> is another spot that, all by itself, is worth a ride up to Reno.\u00a0 It was that good.<\/p>\n

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