Old King Cobra Video

Kings Island posted this old King Cobra video on YouTube and via their blog. Even if you don't care about King Cobra or Kings Island, it is worth watching for the music and dialog alone.

How completely strange to see it in a place that's not Kings Island. I wouldn't characterize it as a great ride, but I didn't mind it (or its cousin at KD).

I always liked King Cobra, thought it had the coolest name. When I was a kid and we would visit and arrive early morning the park would hold guests at a rope just past the theater inside the gate to the left. While waiting for the rope drop you could see King Cobra testing at the end of the midway and it would always get me excited for riding coasters all day. Good memories of PKI.

I never knew it was assembled first at the Togo factory, tested, taken down, and then brought to Kings Island. I guess my enthusiast card needs revoking.

Are there any other coasters that did this? I want to say Hypersonic XLC at Kings Dominion.

I can't name any offhand but I have seen pictures and video of various coasters built almost in their entirety at the manufacture for testing purposes. If I am remembering correctly, I believe TTDs tower structure and track was assembled but laying down.

BrettV said:

I never knew it was assembled first at the Togo factory, tested, taken down, and then brought to Kings Island. I guess my enthusiast card needs revoking.

Are there any other coasters that did this? I want to say Hypersonic XLC at Kings Dominion.

Intamin, when they were using Giovanola as a subcontractor, used to do it often at the plant in Switzerland. An old Giovanola brochure I have shows the prototype first generation Freefall and the coaster that became Shockwave at SFMM/Batman The Escape at Six Flags Astroworld assembled at their plant.Vekoma has a yard where they test new ride systems at their plant.

Seeing the Togo employees doing the test rides reminded me of a story about the Knott's Corkscrew, which was partly assembled at the Arrow Development factory. The story appears in a book called "Fun Land USA" which is from the late 70s - I had it as a kid and found a copy a couple years ago on Amazon.

One of Arrow's employees at the time (a marketing guy called Bob O'Hanneson) said that basically they built everything but the lift hill, so for the test rides they pulled the train backward up the first hill with a crane, and then released it through the corkscrew. He's quoted as saying the test ride was "probably more exciting than the ride itself."

By the time I got to Knott's I was disappointed to find that the original Corkscrew was gone and I couldn't ride that piece of history. But when I rode their Boomerang, I remembered the story and felt like I was at least getting the experience of Arrow's testers.

(And now, of course, it's a toss-up whether I will subject my bones to a Boomerang.)