Evel Knievel’s restored ‘Big Red’ tour rig will start trip to Vegas in Kansas City
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- The restored 63-foot “Big Red” Mack truck begins its Kansas City to Las Vegas run on.
- A motorcycle caravan will escort Big Red and stops span a week-long promo journey to Las.
- The new Evel Knievel museum opens June 27 with interactive exhibits and Knievel artifacts.
For seven years, the Evel Knievel Museum operated in Topeka, Kansas, fittingly inside a historic Harley-Davidson dealership building.
The museum shut down in November 2024, a first step in relocating its memorabilia collection to Las Vegas, where the legendary daredevil nearly died in 1967 when he famously tried to jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace on his motorcycle.
The crash left him with multiple fractures and landed him in a coma for nearly a month.
The new Evel Knievel museum opens June 27 in downtown Las Vegas. Before it does, the grand, 63-foot centerpiece — the “Big Red” Mack truck and trailer in which Knievel toured — begins a pilgrimage from Kansas City to Las Vegas on Saturday.
A caravan of motorcycles will escort it along the way.
The big rig has been restored and fans are invited to visit it at stops along its week-long journey to The Evel Knievel Experience: An Interactive Museum of America’s Original Daredevil.
“Big Red’s Run” will promote the museum’s launch.
The public is invited to “Lunch with Big Red” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at Nextran Truck Centers, 3915 Randolph Road in Kansas City. The truck will also stop in Topeka next week.
Guests can look inside the cab and take photos with Knievel’s motorcycle.
The caravan is also raising awareness and support for service members and their families through a partnership with the United Service Organizations, aka USO. Fans can donate online.
Knievel, born Robert Craig Knievel in October 1938, in Butte, Montana, attempted more than 75 dangerous motorcycle jumps in his career. He was 69 when he died in November 2007.
The museum in Topeka brought to life the story of the country’s most famous daredevil with what was considered the largest collection of Knievel artifacts in the world, including items from his family. The Kansas museum won international tourist attraction awards.
The new Las Vegas Experience will include interactive exhibits — a 4D reality “jump” lets visitors sit on a motorcyle — along with walking canes and other artifacts, documents, archival family films, photos and a retail store.
Knievel’s iconic red, white and blue jumpsuits will be there, along with the motorcycles he rode to fame — as well as the helmet he wore during the infamous Caesars Palace jump.
Evel Knievel’s oldest son and a partner in the museum, Kelly Knievel, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the Experience, two years in the making, is “another great attraction for our city.
“We’re thrilled to be able to share what made Evel so special and such a significant contributor to American culture.”
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