Stand Up Coaster, which designer's track?
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My track record
My Cedar Point page
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If Milli Vanilli fell in the woods, would someone else make a sound ?
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Da Poodle
Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!
The twister can be either Intamin or B and M.
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Da Poodle
Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!
http://www.giovanola.ch/gtec/en/pages/indexs/parcs.htm
You´ll find more rides which have been labelled as Intamin products, but were indeed manufactured by Giovanola.
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i was a teenage rollercoaster designer
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RACE FOR THE SKY!!
TOP THRILL DRAGSTER
On the same ote Intamin manufactured quite a few Schwartzkopf rides.
Gio does not maufacture the track for Beemers though. At least not in the US.
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Da Poodle
Coming in 2003-The Spawn Of Magnum!
Goliath @ SFMM, Titan @ SFOT, Anaconda (not himalaya) @ Gold Reef City, and Euro-Star, the travelling inverted coaster.
Giovanola does fabricate the B&M track for Europe only. A place in Ohio fabricates American B&M Track and probably canada and mexico.
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Thrill World Online
Thrill World Online Version 2.0 Now Open
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Nessy: Ride of Steel
Webmaster of Digital Coaster - http://digital-coaster.com
Anyways what about the track for that Mind Bender, or whatever that good Schwartzkopf looper is, Nessy? Some of that looks like Intamin track....or is it that Intamin copied Schwartzkopf?
Anyways lets get this sorted out now, Im startin to get confused. Theres too much goin on here:
3 rides were made by Giovanola, who, other than that, have made track for a few intamin standups and all B&M's in Europe. Intamin made the standups with Giovanola track off of an idea by Schwartzkopf. Did I get that right?
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RACE FOR THE SKY!!
TOP THRILL DRAGSTER
Ultimate Coaster said:
Anyways what about the track for that Mind Bender, or whatever that good Schwartzkopf looper is, Nessy? Some of that looks like Intamin track....or is it that Intamin copied Schwartzkopf?-----
MIND BENDER and SHOCKWAVE are complete and utter Schwarzkopf/Stengel creations. Stengel wanted to use his heartline technique to eliminate lateral Gs as much as possible and to create a new sensation of coaster-riding.
Schwarzkopf was sceptical. He felt that the trackbending would be far too complicated and expensive. Keep in mind that these were the pre-CAD times! Each running-rail had to be bent manually whith the use of as steel bending machine.
It was Fred Biegler of Six Flags who was so into the idea of the heartline technique, that he convinced Schwarzkopf to give it a try.
The track for all Schwarzkopf coasters was fabricated completely in-house. The lattice-work track was used to deal with the complicated three-dimensional track bending. (It was used for the first time on the ill-fated, very first suspended coaster ALPENFLUG (1974) which was partly designed by Stengel and built (and ruined) by aviation specialists Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm)
After SHOCKWAVE and MINDBENDER, Schwarzkopf ventured into the mobile-looping market. Therefore, the trackdesign had to be simplified and they found a way to bend the track the way they wanted, plus give it enough stability. You can find the result on all post-78 Schwarzkopf coasters (Laser, Mindbender Canada, Texas Tornado, to name a few)
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Anyways lets get this sorted out now, Im startin to get confused. Theres too much goin on here:
3 rides were made by Giovanola, who, other than that, have made track for a few intamin standups and all B&M's in Europe. Intamin made the standups with Giovanola track off of an idea by Schwartzkopf. Did I get that right?
Not quite!
We often forget, that a coaster is a complex structure which requires lots of different components, provided by different providers (brakes, electricity, computer programs, wheel assemblies, etc.). So, no coaster is manufactured by ONE company.
Giovanola/G-tec is a 120 year old steel manufacturer who is doing LOTS of things with steel. They were contracted by Schwarzkopf (via Intamin) to do some of the delicate wheel assemblies for their rides.
Back in the 70s Intamin worked as a ride broker. They
made the worldwide deals for Schwarzkopf coasters and began to develop rides such as the double/triple ferris wheel, the observation towers for Magic Mountain, SFOT and the Marriot parks. Those rides , as well as the first generation freefalls, the looping starships and many more were manufactured by Giovanola.
Even before the invention of the heartline track, Stengel and his team wanted to bend the track according to the "spline function". This was even more complicated as the heartline, as it added a further dimension to the form. (compares to a motorcyclist rycing through a curve. He moves forward, sideways AND up and down at the same time).
Schwarzkopf was a well reluctant to try this. But Intamin and Giovanola decided to take the risk. In 1982 Giovanola patented the box track which was used on the Space Diver/Z-Force coaster. This could be seen as the first Intamin/Giovanola coaster, ever.
The idea of the stand-up was developed and executed by Togo. Schwarzkopf liked the idea and asked Stengel to come up with his own ideas. Meanwhile, Schwarzkopf went out of business. So Giovonala went on to build the first Stand-up rides with the four across arrangement. The design was made by Stengel, the ride was built by Gio and sold by Intamin.
The box track was later used on all B&M rides, which are basically pure Giovanola rides.
The stories that Walter and Claude used to work for Giovanola have never been prooved. It seems plausible, though.
Maybe that´s the point were Giovanola decided to let the world know who was really responsible for the spectacular rides we all love so much. They might have seen how much money was in this business and they knew that they could sell rides without having other companies to cash in on their efforts.
It was no secret that G-tec was very disappointed by the weak sales of their coasters. The development of the tilt-coaster was very expensive and the company decided to pull out of the business after SF declined their interest in the new technology.
However, G-tec is now restructured and the coaster dept. is still working. I recently saw a picture of a new two-seater coaster car which was based on the Goliath design. It looks very good.
Let me again recommend the G-tec web site. It is available in english and gives a good survey of what the company is all about.
thanks for reading.
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i was a teenage rollercoaster designer
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Lake Compounce-So Fresh and So Clean Clean
Vertigo said:
You all are leaving out that Giovanola was also responsible for the Intamin bobsleds, although they no longer manufacture them.------------------
Well, this is covered as well on their website. I would guess that they would build you a bobsled if you want one.
That would be very unlikely, though. (I prefer them to the Mack version anyday).
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i was a teenage rollercoaster designer
From what I can tell, and have been able to gather, Giovanola was almost strictly a fabricator for Intamin. Intamin had engineers and designers (who can be credited for the Intamin standups and bobsleds) and Giovanola did the actual fabrication of the track for the company. The only exception to this would be the first generation free falls; their history is a bit more mysterious.
The only coasters Giovanola actually designed, as far as I can tell, are Goliath, Titan, and Anaconda (GRC), as well as part of the Eurostar. The first generation freefalls may be theirs only (sold by Intamin), as that I've been unable to really tell for sure, but I'm fairly positive Intamin did their own designing of rides.
-Nate
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