Rollercoaster for Autos? I never knew. Did you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOESYhVZpEY&search=Coney%20Island

Found this that includes a AUTOMOBILE ROLLERCOASTER, Racing Virgina Reel and some Coney Flying turns.

Do a search of You Tube CONEY ISLAND and you will find 1940 and 1952 20min Promos for coney, Several tributes, About every mermaid contest for the last 20 years ect. I just wish we had this for many other parks. There are quite a few IDORA ones as well.

Enjoy
Chuck

I can't watch the video thanks to Web(non)sense at work, but is that the structure you drive your car on and it goes up and down some airtime hills?

That's pretty cool. Yes, it's just a series of hills you drive your car on. The narrator has to be the lamest person ever, though.

Awesome! I believe that is from a coaster show I remember seeing back in the 80s.

The wood automobile coaster is neat. Yes, John. It's a bunch of artime hills with cars driving over them. Awesome find!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9I31TcyacY
1952 Coney promo vid 20 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaqiPjM_mNE

1940 coney promo vid.

Tons of non existant or very rare rides featured.

Chuck

Some of those rides look a lot of fun.

It also seems like most of those rides could never exist today (at least in the US) like those slides that everyone was crashing into each other on, that roulette wheel and those spinning discs they called a pool table I think. Others like the hoopla ride didn't look like it had any restraints.

Sweet stuff here....

Liability and insurance basically ensure we'll never have THAT kind of fun again...not in this country, anyway... :(

Gotta wonder though...would John Fetterman and Knoebels ever look into that TILT Coaster idea? ;)

The tilt coaster has always interested me. Would that be considered powered though? ;)

I remember seeing an old coffee table book about California that my grandparents owned that had a picture of "Auto Dips" somewhere along the old Route 66 or something. You could simply pull off the road, pay a nickel, and have some whooptie-whoop.

At 1:16 of that video...

What ride is that, what appears to be a rollercoaster as a flat ride?

I've seen that many times before, but I never knew who made it, what kind of ride it was... and if any are in existance today, or when the last one was in existance.

That's the tilt coaster we're talking about. Don't know anymore info than that.

Ahh...

Well, then... it seems as though in it's "hay day", Coney Island had like OODLES of coasters. Everything from that "Tilt Coaster" (no relation I'm guessing to the Vekoma coaster of the same name ;))... to the Virgina Wheel, the Cyclone, the bobsled, and I could swear I saw another coaster or two there as well...

I gotta wonder two things about that park in its hay day...

1) What were queue times like? 10 minutes, 20, 2hrs... longer?
2) Did the park over time shrink? I was never there ever in my life... but after watching that video & THIS ONE, it seems as though Cony Island was so busy, you could hardly move throughout the park. as if the amusement industry was more profitable back then, than it is now (well, there weren't as many parks back then either).

There were Coney coasters called Thunderbolt and Tornado along with Cyclone. There was this thing with the weather when naming the rides. Sadly only Cyclone has survived.

By the way, it's Virginia Reel, just like the dance, not Virginia Wheel. I sincerely hope that Fetterman and Knoebels make a Reel one of their future projects.

Was that Matt Dillon doing the narrating?

---

sparky697 said:
Was that Matt Dillon doing the narrating?

---

This was from a video I saw a long time ago called Wild Rides from about '82. Yes that's Dillon narrating. There also was a segment with Vincent Price talking about his love of coasters as well.

I can't remember much other than the coney island stuff and they documented the building of SFMM Colossus which I guess was the biggest thing at the time. It really seemed to be like a big commercial for Colossus. Not sure how much Warner was involved with Six Flags at the time but this may have been a big, long promo piece for Colossus.

Nice to see this again as it's been awhile. I remember renting this and it was on one of those old big fat Warner Home Video clam shell cases.

Colossus and Gemini opened the same season. Colossus opened several weeks before Gemini, which topped it by about 6 inches, IIRC.

Matt Dillon was the first thing I noticed. I guess this was right before he was in "The Outsiders" or "Tex." ;)

The "tilt" coaster looks absolutely SICK!

I think I saw this video back in grade school. It rings a bell or two. ;)

So the Tumblebug is considered a coaster? Heheh. That should open up a can of worms.

Awesome video! I enjoyed it!

I would take my car on one of those coasters anytime!

-Tina

*** Edited 9/10/2006 1:29:06 AM UTC by coasterqueenTRN***

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9UzM86omc4
The above video, also from the Wild Rides series hosted by a young Matt Dillon, is a wonderful mix of the SFOG Mindbender and The Cars.

So Matt Dillon can enunciate! Who knew? ;)

I'm with 'Gator: Bring back the Tilt!!!

LOL Tina. :) The tumblebug is a powered coaster at best, right?

Is it just me, or did Matt Dillon stumble a lot through his lines in those coaster videos?