THE WORLD’S most famous stuntman, the late Evel Knievel, has at last been honoured with his own museum which has recently opened in Topeka, Kansas.
The new $5m, 13,000 square-foot museum is dedicated to Knievel’s gravity-defying stunt successes and bone-breaking failures at locations including Ceaser’s Palace, Wembley Stadium and Snake River Canyon.
Visitors to the Knevel Museum can expect to see plenty of memorabilia from America’s most legendary stuntman, including his helmets and leathers, bikes and restored 1974 ‘Big Red’ tractor-trailer unit. Many items have been loaned out by collectors and fans.
The museum also features a virtual reality motorcycle jump and plenty of interactive exhibits to give visitors a close-up look at Knievel’s many fractures and other injuries. There’s also an exhibit which allows visitors to plan their own jumps and plot in variables such as speed, ramp angle, run up and obstacles – including sharks.
With Knievel performing many of his stunts on a Harley-Davidson XR750, it’s fitting that the two-story museum is attached to the Harley dealership in Topeka and the museum’s head, Mike Patterson said of the newly opened attraction:
‘The museum really overwhelms you with how much press he got, how many jumps he did and the amount of work he put in. If you do your diligence and read everything, it's a three- to four-hour journey. Honestly, it'd be virtually impossible to have another place like this because there's a finite amount of Knievel items, and most of them are here.’
