Bill Harrah Collection ====TODAY

[Guest jausnow]

I am a new member seeking information on a former Harrah's collection vehicle I have recently found. It is a 1942 Chrysler Crown Imperial 8 passenger C37 Limousine that was turned into a parade convertible by the Derham Body Company. It was bought out of the Harrah's Collection in the 1980's ?? by Bill Anderson, owner of the Ponderosa Ranch theme park where it served as the wedding vehicle until the park was closed. I am trying to find any information about the vehicle. I am hoping it is listed in one of the Harrah's Auction Catalogs from 1984, 1985 or 1986. Can anyone help??

[Ivan Saxton]

The FRP was in the Restoration shop at the beginning of September 1980. They were re-spoking or truing the Rudge Whitworth wheels. The body was mostly restored and painted. The chassis was on stands, painted and largely together. The radiator was on a shelf. Now as I understand, including what Ralph Buckley told me, It had been in the previous ownership for a long time. It is pretty well known that Mr Harrah required that his cars to be as they were originally made; and research created a complex dossier on each car. And the FRP is a most significant car. So I was most astonished to see photos recently that showed the car had been repainted a completely different colour from what it was in my 1980 photographs. I am not a psychologist, and I do not intend to be rude to anyone; But I am incapable of understanding the mindset of anyone who would expensively repaint a car an unoriginal colour, after it had been previously restored to how it was when it was made.

[trimacar]

Having deep pockets to afford an incorrect paint job is just that, it means one has money. It does not automatically mean one has the class to act correctly in society, nor that one has the sense of historical preservation required to maintain such a car in the correct manner.

People with money can have class and such a sense, as can anyone. It's always sad to run across those who have neither, and even sadder when they leave such damage in their wake.

From everything I've read and heard, Bill Harrah had both class and a great sense of history. Oh, and money!

[automuseum]

Ivan, I would be most interested to know what color the F.R.P. is in your 1980 photo. As far as I know, the car is the same today as it was when restored in Harrah's shop. Perhaps the photos you have seen are poor color renditions, as I admit is the case with the ones I posted in this thread. My references are the F.R.P. photos as they appear in "Automobile Quarterly," Volume 31, No. 4, Summer 1993 when owned by Charles Mallory, and photos of it when it was at the Collier Museum before it came to the Seal Cove Auto Museum... the car is the same. I'm away from my library so I can't look at "Harrah's Automobile Collection, One man's tribute to the great automobiles of the World" by Dean Batchelor, but I think that the photo of the FRP is in B&W. We preserve cars at the Seal Cove not restore them, so if the car was repainted after it left Harrah, it must have been done by Mallory in the 1990s.

Director, Curatorial Affairs, Seal Cove Auto Museum.

[Joe in Canada]

The Harrah collection was the start of car collection's being sold off. To-day if you watch the multiple auction sites many many smaller collection's are being broken up. A sign of the times if they do not have a computer or a video game the younger crowd has no interest. Where will this hobby be in 10 years as you may be able to buy a 33 Ford roadster for a 1960 price. Will antique cars will go in the same way as collector plates or Beany Baby's??????????????????? For me I am hoping for a miracle that things turn around.

[Guest sixball]

Jausnaw, Strange to see Bill Anderson's name come up. My link to the Harah's Collection other than the visits is a '26 Chevy roadster body that Bill got during the auctions along with lots of parts. I'm a poor boy with a piece of the Harah collection. No one has mentioned Bill Harah's Idaho ranch that had no roads to it but had roads on the ranch to drive antique cars on. Everything was flown in.

[Smile]

This thread is pretty old, but the content is really interesting, so I’ll tack something on.

I went to see Harrah’s collection in early September of ’78, before it was shaved away.

So many cars! There was a This! Over there was a That! Stuck between was an Amazing! I was delighted to see the Thomas Flyer in the flesh.

Like most people here, I suffered from overload, whereby the curves of so many automobiles, all jammed together, merged into a polychromatic blur where, soon, nothing stood out. It was hard to focus on any single car, to take in it’s idiosyncratic style, and to appreciate what made it a car worth having, so I just stood back and looked around. I was really surprised to see that the building was a very tired, particularly the roof, and that, glancing down again, one could see that quite a few of cars had bashed fenders from being pushed around in such tight quarters. Already, it was a place run by employees, rather than car people.

I wandered over to look into the restoration shop, and what I saw was a re-manufacturing shop, whereby little of an original car was left. When something was worked on, it emerged brand-new, in butterscotch yellow and chrome. There was no room for patina, which I sort of like. Mind you, I understand that if everyone liked patina, eventually nothing would be drivable!

To tell the truth, I didn’t understand it. I love old cars, the learning, the sizing up, the buying, the sorting out, and, above all, the driving, which is followed by the real learning. Here was something so big that the owner hired people to do all the above. Where was the fun in that? Knowing the quirks of a car seems to be more fun than having every variant of something quite dull in a warehouse. But that’s me, and de gustibus non est disputandum.

To be clear, I had a hell of a good time, and I loved the bin-ends that were being lined up for sale in their natural wrecked state. Nice Bugatti. Looked like a Type 40.

[JACK M]

Still a shame that there will not be a collection like it ever again.

Not only cars but guns, slot machines etc. and all in one place.

It couldn't be seen in a day. I had to extend my trip.

[Guest Herbie3Rivers]

Long shot, but Smile, do you have any more pictures. Maybe of my Herbie? or the even the other Herbie they had? Harrah's had a clean Herbie (53s and stripes) and my car which was solid white with a red cross on the hood.

[Smile]

Long shot, but Smile, do you have any more pictures. Maybe of my Herbie? or the even the other Herbie they had? Harrah's had a clean Herbie (53s and stripes) and my car which was solid white with a red cross on the hood.

Sorry! No Herbie in stock.

[Ron Lawson]

I went to Reno in June 2014 while I was in the US for the 100 year Dodge Brothers Celebrations and I found it to be a very interesting collection I spent 7 hours there photographing and chatting to the gentleman that ran the workshop If I remember rightly I think he said that there were still 212 cars in the collection It would have to be one of the best displays that I have seen Wish we had something like it in Australia