The National Automobile Museum is one of the world's great car museums and the single most rewarding indoor stop in Reno. Built around the Harrah Collection — the 1,400 vehicles assembled by casino owner Bill Harrah in the mid-twentieth century and partly preserved after the collection was broken up in the 1980s — the museum has more than 200 cars in four themed galleries covering one period each from the 1890s to the present.
Highlights include Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion #2 (1933), an Elvis Presley Cadillac, James Dean's 1949 Mercury from Rebel Without a Cause, and a 1907 Thomas Flyer that won the 1908 New York-to-Paris race. The presentation is exceptional — cars displayed in atmospheric period street scenes rather than blank galleries. Allow two to three hours.