The Harrah Collection

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Whether or not you approve of museums, Harrah’s Automobile Collection at Reno, Nevada, must be counted as impressive, and a remarkably good use for money earned from operating gambling machines to be put. A reader has sent us a catalogue of this Museum, from which we see that pride of place on the front cover has been given to a colour plate depicting a 1910 Mulliner-bodied Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce, although the remark in the caption that the first Silver Ghost set “a world record for 15,000 miles non-stop” is rather wide of the mark.

The catalogue lists 1,330 cars, 14 boats, 11 aeroplanes, 67 motorcycles, 32 children’s cars and 15 miscellaneous items. Alphabetically, the cars run from a 1935 AC Ace to a 1931 Yellow Cab. They embrace 14 Auburns, 15 Bugattis, 26 Cadillacs, 34 Chevrolets, 39 Chryslers, 89 Packards,14 Rolls-Royces, one a Springfield, and 136 Fords. There are even 18 Duesenbergs, four of which are the model for which 320 h.p. was claimed. I am sad to see that the single-seater 1923 Aston-Martin “Razor Blade” has fetched up here. Only one-known-to-exist examples of rotary-engined Adams-Farwell, Atlas passenger car, 1925 70 h.p. Delta, 1923 Fox 7-7, Frayer-Miller passenger car, 1918, f.w.d. Frontmobile, 1915 Harding, Hollier 158, Kleiber passenger car, 1923 Leon Rubay and 1928 Type M7 Mauser are in the Collection. Racing and record-breaking cars number the aforesaid Aston-Martin, Ab. Jenkins’ 1937 Cord, the 1934 Ford Don Hulbert Special, a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 record-car, Le Mans Mk.IIB and Mk.IV Fords, the Indianapolis Kurtis Ross Page Special, the Kurtis 500D Anstcad Rotary Special, the Lincoln Capri which won the 1954 Pan-Am race, a 1929 Little Mystery Indianapolis record-car, a Maserati 6CM, the Mercury Comet which did 100,000 miles at over 108 m.p.h. at Indianapolis in 1964, the European-visiting f.w.d. Miller Packard Cable Special of 1929 and the 1908 “Round-the-World race” Thomas. The aircraft include a two-cylinder C3 Aeronca and a 1928 Ford Tri-Motor. There are, by the way, five Bentleys, one 8-litre being credited with no less than 225 h.p., although it has a drophead coupe body by Windovers!

Not bad for a hobby which began in 1948 with the acquisition of a 1911 Maxwell.—W.B.