Driving Bill Harrah's Personal Ferrari Powered Grand Wagoneer

Intro and Photos by Steve Natale Story by Miguel Caparros.

While visiting the National Automobile Museum (Harrah Collection) recently, I saw many amazing historic and classic cars on display, but could not help with being infatuated with Bill Harrah’s personal “driver”. A 1977 Jeep Wagoneer, fitted with a 12 cylinder Ferrari engine. The “Jerrari” reflects the personality and creativity of the man who owned it, Bill Harrah. I mentioned the car to Miguel Caparros, and he shared his personal experience of driving this very special car years ago…….

The first time I read about the Jerrari was in Road & Track's Ron Wakefield's article August of 1971 issue.   I just had gotten back home to Plymouth New Hampshire from an all expences paid vacation by my former employer, the US Army. I had a lot of reading to catch up on so I startred with the latest issue of Road & Track Magzine. I saw something that seemed so wrong. There was a photo of this Jeep Wagoneer with a Ferrariesque nose and grill. Now at the time I thought what a waste of a perfectly good Ferrari in retrospect,  If I had Bill Harrah's finnacial depth I would have created outrageous stuff too. When we moved to California I had a list of things to do #3 was the Harrah collection in Sparks Nevada. In 1983 my friend Bill Duryea and I drove up to Reno from San Francisco,  I wanted to see the collection before it was broken up.  After Bill Harrah's death there was wrangling about the collection going on with the Holiday Inn who bought the Harrah hotels and the car collection. It was just business, They saw the sale of the collection as a way to recuperate money. 

I seem to have a talent for worming my way into places and meet the people that actually get things done. On this day I ran into one of Mr Harrha's son who was working on something of his own. I started to talk about the Jerrari, referring to the original 1968 Jeep Wagoneer with the Ferrari nose grafted on to the front that I had read about in 1971. He told me that car was gone and Mr Harrah had the work shop crew built another with a 1977 Grand Wagoneer. Bill and I were led over to where this very normal looking Wagoneer stood.

 At that point we were picked up by one of the shop mechanics and Mr Harah's son left us in some very capeable hands, as this was one of the original fabricators for Bill Harrah. He went into detail as to the problems and fabrication that had to be done to attach the Ferrari engine to the Jeep 4 wheel drive, and the unconventional dual radiators needed as the engine was much longer that the AMC V8 that was originally fitted. After chatting for a while I just had to ask, “Can we go for a ride?” The answer was sure "if you drive and buy lunch". Done! We headed out of the shop and besides the usual Ferrari noises from the engine compartment and a dash full of Stewart Warner gauges, it just felt like any other Jeep. We caught I 80 east bound towards Fernly, ant it climbed up the like no jeep I ever drove. I was able to hold 90 during the climb with out effort. We passed Fernly in no time and were now in the Plateu that leads to Bonniville, No speed limit from here, foot to the floor and I let the Jerrari strech its legs. At 140 you can cover ground like a private plane, Elko was cumming up fast. My new  found friend knew of a restaurant in Elko he wanted to eat at. The food and the altitude were taking a toll on my clarity so Bill drove back to Fernly foot plastered to the floor and hitting 150 on some down hill streches. We did go by a Nevada Trooper that turned on his lights and just as quickly turned them off, he either knew who's Jeep this was or figured by the time he got the cruiser up to speed he would never be able to catch the Wagoneer that had set off his radar at 150 +.

Follow this link to see the original Road & Track Photos and write up. 

Go to The National Auto Museum in Reno Nevada.

Steve Natale's Blog

Last Stand For Kaiser-Frazer

Kaiser-Frazer Corporation was a partnership between automobile executive Joseph W. Frazer and industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. In 1947, the company acquired the automotive assets of Graham-Paige, Kaiser-Frazer was the only new US automaker to achieve success after World War II, if only for a few years.

Henry Kaiser had no automotive marketing experience while Joseph Frazer did, He was president of the Graham-Paige Corporation prior to the Second World War. Henry Kaiser was a damn the torpedoes full Speed ahead kind of guy. Joseph Frazer was a realist. As sales for K-F products dropped off in 1949 as Ford Chrysler and GM introduced a new generations of designs, Kaiser pushed for more production creating an oversupply of cars that took until mid-1950 to sell. With nothing but friction between the two, Frazer left the company in 1951, and the Frazer nameplate was dropped after a short 10,000 unit production run. In 1952 the Corporation was renamed Kaiser Motors Corporation and continued building passenger cars through 1955.

In 1953 Kaiser bought the strapped Willys-Overland company and merged the Kaiser and Willys became the Willys Motors. The decision was then made to exit the passenger car market, which was accomplished at the end of the 1955 model year. By 1956, Willys Motors was building only utility vehicles, many for export, and was turning a healthy profit.

In 1970, the Kaiser Jeep Corporation, as the company had been renamed in 1963, was sold to American Motors Corporation which continued to manufacture Jeep vehicles until AMC itself was purchased by Chrysler in 1987 for $360 million. Chrysler wanted the Jeep vehicle line and had estimated that for them to create a similar competing product and build a reputation to match would have cost in excess of $1 billion.