Bill Harrah Collection ====TODAY

[poci1957]

Ivan, the Zimmerman car I worked on in the 1980s was a yellow 1935 Cadillac V16 with a 154" wheelbase and a Fleetwood victoria convertible body, I guess only one of two built that year. Do we know where it is now? I think I recall him speaking of an Olds Limited at that time too but I never saw it, probably in storage in Florida. Thanks, Todd C

[TG57Roadmaster]

As a wide-eyed 11-year-old on a family trip Way Out West, we stopped at Harrah's on July 27, 1968. Thankfully, my dad acknowleged the budding enthusiasm I showed to all old cars, and the visit made a lasting impression, to say the least. Admission for "minors" was 75 cents, but the adults got a free token and drink at the casino for their $1.50 ticket price. Our tickets (and some very fond memories) are all that remain of that storied stop, as none of my Instamatic's pictures turned out. Too bad...

A favorite photo from The Making of Modern Michigan's Digital Collection is this '31 Packard 840 Club Sedan by Dietrich, shown outside Harrah's in the mid-'60's. This particular Packard debuted at the 1931 Chicago Salon, held at the famed Drake Hotel, Nov. 8-15, 1930, and was one of the cars we saw on our tour of the huge collection. I remember this particular car well.

Thanks for starting a great thread!

TG

Edited June 5, 2014 by TG57Roadmaster (see edit history)

[1937hd45]

Thanks TC ! Great photo of that Packard, the Show cars were always special. While you were on that Harrah Collection tour I was at the Henry Ford Collection, my high school graduation present.

[Dandy Dave]

I got to shake Bill Harrahs hand once and I ain't washed it since. Was at Hershey in the early 80's. He was a down to earth guy. Dandy Dave!

How time, and memory, flys by. I guess it was in the mid to late 70's. As a little bird told me he passed in 1978. I looked it up and sure nuff. I didn't realize that the man did so young. 66 he was. What I remember clearly was that I was walking along looking at stuff and spotted a friend who was talking to Bill. I had no idea until I was introduced. My friend sold him a vintage truck many years ago and that is how they knew each other. Dandy Dave!

[Ivan Saxton]

The other early Lancia you mention in your corner of the country was apparently much more original and authentic. Morris Burrows told me of it when I was his guest for nthe 1980 Glidden Tour at Bretton Woods. It was one of the early small cars, either an Alpha or a Beta; and it had a very nice open 4 passenger body by one of the better USA bodybuilders of the era in the north-east. Morris said he very seriously considered buying it when it was available. In 1980 it was in the Seal Cove Museum, he said; but I understood that the museum had shut for the season and there was no way that I could have seen it. I believe it was sold to Switzland. There was another slightly later and larger model about too, which featured in the UK magazine Autoitalia several years ago. It may have been owned by Austin Clark for a while; and was ten in Peter Helk's Collection before it was sold to Holland before the present UK ownership. The car itself is something of a mystery, because the story with it was that it was raced at Savannah; with the implication that it was either the car with which Jim Hillard won the International Light Car Race on 25th of November 1908, or that with which Knipper won the Tideman Trophy a year later. Hillard's car was almost certainly an Alpha, because the new Tipo 54 Beta model was first introduced at the London Motor Show in Nov 1908. Knipper's car could have been either. The Autoitalia car is quite clearly a 1910 Gamma model which could never have raced the two previous years. And the early number that has been stamped on the channel of the chassis rail above the front spring hanger looks like someone has tried to create provenance. Some Italian makers like FIAT stamped numbers on the actual front spring hangers, but Lancia never did.

You must be pleased at the bounce in the number of views since this earlier thread of your re-surfaced, Bob. There are other significant early collectors who probably did a great service through saving rare cars for eventual enjoyment by later owners. I have never seen a comprehensive list of the collections of Barney Pollard or Cameron Peck, for instance. And the quality and rareity of Briggs Cunningham's was extraordinary.

With your interest in modified T models, you should talk to Dean Butler. A couple of years ago after Phillip Island Historic Racing when he came here for lunch, he told me that he could supply new castings for 5 bearing crank T models. He also has a twin cam Miller T Ford head, which would be a good one to replicate. You would need good brakes. I'll probably be able to make 4-valve Rajos available to people who want them in a year or so.

[Guest Herbie3Rivers]

I just found this thread and thought I'd show off my former Harrah's Collection car. My 1959 VW Herbie was part of the collection from 1980 to 1984. Prior to that it was part of James Brucker's MovieWorld Cars of the Stars. My car was part of the September 1984 liquidation auction and sat languishing for years before being restored in the early 90s. I have the certificate from Harrah's, the auction catalog, a bidder pass(recent find), copies of old titles and registration documents and bunch of other documentation from the collection. I'm always interested to hear stories of the museum and if anyone remembers my car or has pictures of it when it was in the collection.

1984:

Today:

[Joneebgood]

If anyone has an auction list and it is not too much to ask would you please look for this Chrysler for me? It was in a museum at one time but we do not know which one.

1936 Chrysler Airstream C-8 rumble seat coupe

Thank for any help you can offer.

NANCY DEWITT: The 1984 auction catalog shows a 1919 McFarlan four-passenger sport touring, Model 125. The info I recorded with the catalog states that it was in #4 condition and sold for $35,000.

Brassnutboyz: Dean Kruse (Kruse International) did the auctions in 1984, 85 and 86.

[keiser31]

If anyone has an auction list and it is not too much to ask would you please look for this Chrysler for me? It was in a museum at one time but we do not know which one.

1936 Chrysler Airstream C-8 rumble seat coupe

Thank for any help you can offer.

Looks just like the one that I saw in the Windsor Antique Auto Museum in Ontario Canada when I was about 14 years old...1964. I believe the museum is still there on Laurium Street?

[franklinman]

I was fortunate enough to have visited the HAC both before and after Bill Harrah's untimely passing and the subsequent break up of the collection. For ardent car buffs the original collection was probably more interesting (I know it was for me!). Just so many great cars to see at one time. The new museum is certainly more appealing to the general public with it's professionally designed displays, etc. Harrah maintained a car museum for car guys/gals. The attitude from the collection staff, while Bill was alive, was much more helpful towards the car collector/restorer. I once called to see if I could get a photo, or at least a drawing with some measurements of a small part from one of the cars, and was lucky enough to end up talking with long time Harrah employee Clyde Wade. He said he'd see what he could do. About a week later I got a surprise when the part showed up in the mail along with a note saying thay didn't have a spare, and since it was quicker to take it off than to make up a drawing just copy this one and get it back as soon as possible. The year after the new museum opened downtown, I was finally able to meet Clyde in person on our Honeymoon trip and thank him in person. A great time in our Hobby that won't be forgotten.

[dei]

Boy do I love this thread!

TG57Roadmaster,

You say you were there in July 1968. I was there in July 1969 at the age of 14. Not only do I remember it as thrilling and awestruck but Dad just gave me a box of some of his auto material collection last Saturday and while going through it all, found the same admission tickets you posted. Mine has a date stamp of July 13, 1969.

Of possible interest is the ticket numbers on the adult tickets being a year apart. Mine is 414766 and yours is 321924 indicating 92842 paid adult admissions in one year? At $1.50 ea this would be $139,263.00 gross income not including the .75 minor admissions! NOT BAD INCOME BACK IN 1969! Who says Museums can`t sustain themselves if the numbers are true? Of course in business the saying "Location, Location, Location" helps.

My minor admin ticket number is 426398. Could not see yours the way you posted but it would be interesting to see how many kids went through in that time period to support the hobby wouldn't it? With now owning 8 antique cars, Dad taking the effort to bring me through Harrah's Collection was the best thing (or the worst - ha, ha) he could have done for me!

Great memories!

Doug

[Restorer32]

Harrah had one heck of a research department. We restored the sole surviving (we think) 1917 Bell built in York, PA. A previous owner had written to Harrah asking for any info re Bell automobiles. They responded with a list of 5 owners of Bells...all 5 of the previous owners of the car we had in the shop.

[poci1957]

Thinking about that comment about the research department it occurred to me how much knowledge was lost when Harrahs was broken up. I wonder if it would be possible for some of the companies who have really profited from old cars since then--the big auctions like Barrett Jackson--to cooperate in funding such a research organization now? It would be great to have such a resource to draw on since we have already lost lots of the knowledge of early (pre 1920s) cars. People with firsthand experience with prewar cars are next. This idea assumes that the auctions are interested in historians and collectors gaining real information about things like 1920s assembled cars. Or 1963 Pontiac ambulances.........

I obviously write that comment as a jab but really do think this could be a potential good idea. Maybe some kind of for-profit/non-profit partnership between the big auctions, repro parts companies, museums, and clubs like the AACA. Maybe involving McPherson College. Even SEMA and street rod organizations might be interested in funding research and documenting the historic street rods I keep hearing so many people are interested in. It used to be that the hobby clubs and magazines would be responsible for this but we all know they cannot afford such a luxury now. Anybody else think this could be a good idea? Todd C

Edited January 16, 2012 by poci1957 (see edit history)

[trimacar]

Ivan mentioned in passing a very good point about the Harrah's collection.

The cars were lined up, side by side and very close, and you'd walk the aisle between the cars.......you'd look up ahead at a rare car, and rush to see it....and as you did, you rushed by and barely glanced at 10 OTHER rare cars.....there was just no way to take it all in......

I have a picture of my wife, who's about 5 foot 7, standing next to an early White in the collection.....and the top of her head is just about even with the center of the steering wheel......

There were some wonderful cars there, though......

[Dave Henderson]

David, guess you didn't get over to Reno while on your recent business trip to Sacremento eh? In the '70's you could hop a free bus ride from there going to the casinos in Reno, and you were also given a gratis starter roll of coins to blow in the one arm bandits. I "cashed in" on the deal once, took the ride, went into a casino and "squandered" a coin, pocketed the rest, and proceeded to Harrah's for the whole day. Whata deal.... whata place!

[Guest Len Sholes]

I was at Harrahs auction that was held on September 27, 1985 and the addmission price was $6.50. At this time I purchased a book called Harrah`s Automobile Collection written by Dean Batchelor which he signed for me. Unfortunatley I can not locate my list of cars with selling prices, that were sold but I do remember that a Duesenberg Roadster sold for $1,000,000.00 and I am sure the new owner was Tom Monaghan, who at that time, owned the Detroit Tigers and Dominos Pizza. At that time this was the most anyone had paid for a Duesy. As the bidding got close to the end the whole crowd quietened down and when the gavel came down and the auctioneer said SOLD SOLD SOLD the whole place cheered and clapped. I have since visited the new museum in downtown Reno a couple of times and think it is great.

[trimacar]

Yes, I've made the drive from Sacramento to Reno, just to see the museum, not to do the slots! I gamble enough when I buy cars these days...

Great museum, and I'd met Tom Batchelor (Dean's son??) when I once went to Reno to test drive a 1911 Buick roadster he was helping sell.....and Tom was, and is I believe, still involved in the Reno museum....

[motoringicons]

I worked for the collection during the Holiday Inn years in which the collection was sold over a four year period- both privately and at the three big auctions. It was an amazing experience to be able to catalog, see,touch and even drive many great cars and provided me with an education about cars that I could have never experienced elsewhere.

Len mentions the Dean Batchelor book. This book is by far the best written and most comprehensive book ever written about the collection. The book not only describes the cars, but also the people that were involved with the collection including Harrah. There are many great stories about how the collection was formed, how certain cars were purchased and restored, etc. The best part about the book is in the back which list all the cars owned by Harrah (about 1,500). This book is long out of print but does come on the market every so often. It is probably the most read and most useful reference book I have in my library and no serious car collector should be without it!

Edited January 16, 2012 by motoringicons (see edit history)

[TG57Roadmaster]

Glad to see all the continuing responses on this thread, and how the collection influenced everyone through the years. Doug, it's especially cool about your admission tickets, that they (and mine) survived, and the impact a visit had on us youngsters. My minor ticket is 244151, yours is 426398, indicating 182,247 of us passed through the doors between '68 and '69, with a gate of $136,685.25. Add that to the $139,263.00 in adult ticket sales for a total of $275,948.25, and we can see that Mr. Harrah was really onto something! Who would even imagine we could come to such conclusions almost 45 years later.

Keeping in mind that with their ticket, the adults got both a Drink and a Lucky Token at the casino, upping the ante with even more income (my parents never took "one" drink!). Again Doug, thanks, this is raw data compiled out of the blue from the simplest of souvenirs, our squirreled-away tickets; I now see them in a whole new light, and cherish the memories even more!

Herbie, that's a pretty neat "Herbie" you have there. Great to see where some of the cars have wound up.

TG

Edited June 5, 2014 by TG57Roadmaster (see edit history)

[Ron Green]

Though nothing like Reno, I remember Harrah’s casino in Atlantic City and it had some very special vehicles spread throughout the casino. You could walk right up to them. The one that impressed me at the time was the STP turbine car that ran (and broke) in the Indy 500.

[Guest Herbie3Rivers]

Herbie, that's a pretty neat "Herbie" you have there. Great to see where some of the cars have wound up.

TG

What's wild, is according to the notes I've received from the Nat. Automobile Museum is that in the inventory notes from Harrah's S.W. Abbott made a note about my car being used in the 1st Herbie movie, but Harrah's never referred to my car that way. They always referred to it as the "Red Cross VW". The paint job, at least at the time of the restoration was so bad that you could make out the 53 under the paint on the doors. The Red Cross paint job ended up being for a scene in Herbie Rides Again that was cut from the movie and according to the shooting script and pictures from the set that I've tracked down was quite elaborate with robotic arms and such attached to the front quarter panels.

[john2dameron]

Len, I remember the Million-Dollar Duesy a little differently. It is a cream-colored Dual-Cowl Phaeton with a maroon sweep panel that runs from the hood into the front doors. When Harrah's sold the car Monaghan had a buyer there but decided the car was going to high and had his buyer drop out of the bidding and it sold for $850,000. A few weeks later he became remorseful over not buying the car and paid the One Million Dollars for it. The car was on display at the Spring Show at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1988 (that is now Lowes Motor Speedway). It was just about impossible to get a photo of it. The crowd was awful but I waited them out and finally got one photo with no one in it. On the fabric cover on the passenger side sidemount are the words, "$1,000,000 Duesy. This was only a few years before Tom Monaghan liquidated his collection.

[West Peterson]

The cream-colored sweep panel Duesenberg phaeton was bought from a private owner in Minneapolis by Monaghan. It was not bought at an auction, and I don't think it has ever been sold at an auction.

Here's the car as it looks now.

Edited January 18, 2012 by West Peterson (see edit history)

[motoringicons]

Wes is right about the Duesenberg, and, if I am not mistaken, it was blue with a cream colored sweep panel. Monaghan did buy a lot of cars from Harrah's including the Bugatti Royale Berline de Voyage which was one of two owned by Harrahs.

[West Peterson]

Never blue. Dick Gold restored it with cream body and rust-colored sweap, which is the way it was during Monaghan's ownership. It was recently restored by Randy Ema in the color combination seen above.

[trimacar]

I rode in the Bugatti Royale Berline de Voyage when Monaghan owned it. I was told by its caretaker that every time it was brought out in public (i.e. trailered to a show and back), that Monaghan had to pay a $10,000 "bump" on his insurance premium for the car.....not sure if true, but that's what the guy told me....somehow I thought Jerry Moore bought the car, and sold it to Monaghan, at some point the price was $14 million.......

[West Peterson]

You are correct. Jerry Moore paid 6.5 M for the car at the Harrah auction. Monaghan bought it from Moore soon after and paid something like $8 M.

[trimacar]

That sounds right. It's coming back to me now, I was visiting Jerry right after he sold it (he was an "acquaintance" of mine, I knew him through the CCCA in Texas when I lived in Louisiana, I can't say we were "friends") and he was bragging about the money he made on the sale.

I don't know what he has now, I heard he got into muscle cars, but at the time, I walked into a room that had about 40 of Jerry's cars. All Classics, of course, but they had one other distinction: the ONLY cars in that room were Duesenbergs, V-16 Cadillacs, and V-12 Packards!!! Nothing common, that's for sure......

I was fortunate, as many of you were, to see the Harrah collection when it was more or less together......and I doubt that there'll ever be another collection of that size, and of that rarity, again, although the unfortunate late John O'Quinn was making a pretty good run at it......

[West Peterson]

Jerry died a few years ago. His son is into exotic cars, and I think has some sort of dealership in the Houston area.

[trimacar]

Thanks, West, I didn't realize or remember that he had died.....he was a character....

[john2dameron]

Did Monaghan liquidate his car collection and donate the money to charity. I heard something like that in the 1990's.

[1937hd45]

West, How come you can't cut and paste a photo on this site? Is that black Duesenberg J-444 the ex Joe Brown car?

[motoringicons]

Yes, Monaghan sold his whole car collection as well as his art collections which included probably one of the best collections of Franklin Lloyd Wright. He also sold the Tigers and in more recent years Dominos. He now creates and supports very Christian charities with his money.He is still quite a conservative political and religious figure here in the Ann Arbor area where Dominos was located. His former car and art museums are just up the street from me.

[West Peterson]

West, How come you can't cut and paste a photo on this site? Is that black Duesenberg J-444 the ex Joe Brown car?

I don't know what you're talking about. Photos are "cut and pasted" all the time here. Joe E. Brown car was a Durham Tourster (no sweep panel), and the car we're discussing above is a supercharged (double carbureted) LaGrand phaeton (J-107). In my opinion, J-107 is one of the top 3 most desirable Duesenbergs ever built.

Edited January 19, 2012 by West Peterson (see edit history)

[1937hd45]

Thanks West! Both cars were black on black with blackwalls, that is why I asked. On other sites it is possible to click on a photo like yours and add it to a question posted by another member, makes for a more clear discussion IMO, but what do I know?

[West Peterson]

Oh. You're wondering why, when you hit reply on a post with a photo, that the photo doesn't come up with it. I don't know, but a new forum design is coming shortly. Hopefully that will be a new feature. In the meantime, you'll just have to download the photo onto your own computer, then pick it up again in your reply.

I believe J-107 is dark blue, not black. Did I mention that 107 is, in my opinion, in the top 2 or 3 most desirable Duesenbergs?

[JD in KC]

...In the meantime, you'll just have to download the photo onto your own computer, then pick it up again in your reply.

Or, alternatively if you are a retired programmer , or just naturally kinda geeky, you can reference the photo as a link:

Just copy the location (URL) of the photo and paste it into the Insert Image URL query box.

[West Peterson]

I guess this post has been officially hijacked.

Testing JD's suggestion, but I'm not quite sure where the "query box" is located.

http://forums.aaca.org/attachments/f169/114626d1326904353-bill-harrah-collection-today-picture-1.jpg

[JD in KC]

My apologies for the highjack. Will return to your regularly scheduled thread following this message:

[West Peterson]

I wasn't blaming you, I was trying to imply the fault was mine. Thanks for the clarification and teaching us something new.

[1937hd45]

On OTHER sites you just click on the photo or the fancy box JD in KC posted in his reply and click on COPY then go to your new post and PASTE it. Us idiots like the simple way of sharing photos, but this is a feature (photos) that has drives some away to start vastly better sites. Mini rant is over, move along, nothing to see here, literally.