National Automobile Museum

National Automobile Museum

Entrance on Lake St
Established	1989
Location	Reno, Nevada
Type	Automobile museum
Collection size	200+ cars Automotive Research Library
Website	www.automuseum.org

The National Automobile Museum, located just south of the Truckee River in Reno, Nevada, displays historic automobiles from the late 19th century and from throughout the 20th. Most of the vehicles displayed are from the collection of the late casino owner William F. Harrah, and so the museum is sometimes referred to as The Harrah Collection.

The museum's holdings of over 200 cars are spread over four galleries. Gallery 1 showcases cars built during the 1890s & 1900s, Gallery 2 features cars from the 1910s to 1930s, Gallery 3 the 1930s through to the 1950s, and Gallery 4 displays cars from 1950 onwards. Gallery 4 also includes race cars and the Off-road Motorsports Hall of Fame. Each gallery is linked by a themed "street", featuring vehicles as well as faux shop fronts.

Celebrity owned cars include;

• Elvis Presley's 1973 Cadillac Eldorado,
• Frank Sinatra's 1961 Ghia L6.4,
• John F. Kennedy assigned 1962 Lincoln Continental,
• John Wayne's 1953 Chevrolet Corvette.

Movie featured cars include;

• 1892 Phillion Road Carriage, from The Magnificent Ambersons,
• 1912 Rambler 73-400 Cross-Country, from the 1997 version of Titanic,
• 1949 Mercury Series 9CM, driven by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.

The Golden DeLorean at the National Automobile Museum

The collection includes examples from marques such as; Auburn, Bugatti, Cord, Duesenberg, Ferrari, Franklin, Jaguar, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Pierce-Arrow, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, and Stutz. Also on display is one of three 24kt gold plated DeLorean DMC-12s built for American Express, a "Jerrari", a Jeep Wagoneer fitted with a V-12 Ferrari engine and formerly used for winter driving by William F. Harrah, and the only surviving prototype of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion car.

The Museum has been named in the 'Top Ten Museums' by Car Collector magazine, one of "America's Five Greatest Automobile Museums" and one of the top sixteen auto museums in the world by AutoWeek, and has been repeatedly selected as the best museum in Northern Nevada by Nevada Magazine's annual reader's poll.