Vekoma and Chance-Morgan Co-op

I'm not sure how this slipped past the radar, but Chance Morgan and Vekoma announced on October 12th that they would form an alliance to better tap the US market.

Press Release: http://www.chancemorgan.com/graphics/chanpics/PR_CMI_Vekoma_Partnership_2006-10-12.pdf

(I didn't submit this as news because it's more than two weeks old at this point)

Of course, the first thing that came into my head was that two wrongs don't make a right. Hopefully Vekoma can show Morgan how to keep their coasters from derailing, and Morgan can show Vekoma how to keep their rider's heads from being played like a bongo.

The last major Vekoma coaster that opened in the USA was Gauntlet in Magic Springs & Crystal Falls 2004.

Excluding the kiddie coasters and Expedition Everest, which I'm sure was in development before 2004.

Top secret communique from Chance-Morgan to Vekoma:

When wheels fall off your coaster trains, they actually run BETTER. How do you do it? We must know your secrets!

-CO

The last major Vekoma in the US (which is still not the center of the universe) was Expedition Everest this year. They also opened that motorcycle thing, though I forget where.

^I believe it was the boosterbike at Toverland in Germany Jeff.

Interestingly enough they were able to get it working far better than intamin with their hydro launchers....now if only they can get their flyers to work reliably a majority of the time.

Research before you post assuming you know everything, Batwing. Booster Bike was in 2004. Vekoma added Motorbikes at Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo in 2005 and Chimelong Paradise (China) in 2006.

This is a farce in the making.

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Fun said:
I'm not sure how this slipped past the radar

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I submitted it for news a couple days ago and it hasn't got posted yet.

It is quite possible that I may be going against the grain with this, but I think this may be a good route to take for both companies. It seems that neither businesses have been all that successful in recent years (except for Vekoma and their work with Disney, which is big for them).

Good things come from collaboration. Both companies just created far more resources than they had before. I hope that they will be able to put their heads together to come up with some cool and successful products.

I could be wrong, but I'm a fan of collaboration. I'm excited to see what comes of this!

What's been keeping Chance afloat lately has been sales of their carousels and CP Huntingtons. They sold thirty of the double deck carousels to Westfield Shoppingtowns,and have sold a number of the endangered species machines to zoos. The first generation Huntingtons which are approx.40 plus years old now, are being replaced with new ADA compliant sets, which keeps that production line busy.

Let's not forget that GCII and Mack aligned themselves in Europe a few years ago. Now Europe is seeing its second GCII wood coaster in two years. Obviously these things work when one company has a presence in a given market and the other has a product worth marketing. I would say that Vekoma has the presence and Morgan has the product, even though Vekoma products seem to be getting a lot better since they restructured.

Actually, I beleive GCI is sold by the same sales company MACK uses, Gunter-Engelhardt: http://www.guenter-engelhardt.com/ .

Adam

I thought the two companies "partnered up" but I could be wrong.