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GCI 'Big Fun' Compact Woodie

Martyn B

Martyn B

CF Legend
Just spotted this on Towers Times and thought it was quite interesting:

CGI have unvailed a new ride design at IAAPA called the Big Fun Coaster. The ride is designed for smaller theme parks and is a pre-designed coaster that is 65ft Tall & can fit on a site the size of two standrad wild mouse coasters. The ride costs just $3m and that price includes everything all the park have do is build a fence around the ride and a queue line.

This ride would be perfect for some of our non melin theme parks as a great price, the height wouldnt be an issue and provides a ride that is suitable for the whole family while still being thrilling enough for older riders. The below link as POV of the ride
Click to expand...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pee7s7cbWm8[/youtube]

What a fantastic looking little coaster that is! But my god that music is annoying...
 
Looks really good for a woodie with plenty of airtime, that's only 65ft, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was constructed in loads of different parks around the world. It sure looks furious...

Do any of the turns have 90 degree banking?
 
Out of all that I've seen from IAAPA so far this year which I didn't already know about, this coaster excites me the most.

Seriously.

I think that the layout is great, the price is amazing and the footprint is tiny. Part of me really hopes that a smaller UK or European park will snap one of these up.
 
This looks like a fantastic little coaster for our Smaller Parks in the Uk. I really like the look of this, I suppose this is GCI's answer to Gravity Group's Twister at Grona Lund.
 
Brilliant! It's like a wooden mega-lite.
As said, I would love it at a small English park, it would fit in perfectly. :)
 
I wouldn't get too excited about seeing this everywhere, these sort of layouts always pop up at IAAPA and then get forgotten about.

Nice to see that they're branching into the tiny woodie market though.
 
It would't be an awful idea for Melin to pick one of these up, So they don't want to invest in a woodie because the GP see them as old fashioned and unsafe but for 3 million its worth the gamble for many reasons, 1. Its cheap, 2. it's compact and wouldn't take up space that the park may need for a future large investment, 3. running a 2 train operation would eat the queue's and 4. to test the GP's reaction to a modern woodie.

If that doesn't get us a GCI in the UK then please step forward Colin Bryan........
 
In concept, it reminds me of Balder. Prefabricated, compact, and a stock model that would fit on any large flat surface. Bet it rides completely different, though.

Nice price tag as well. You could get nine of those for the price of Leviathan.
 
-lofty- said:
I suppose this is GCI's answer to Gravity Group's Twister at Grona Lund.
Click to expand...
I was thinking the same. It looks like it has alot of airtime, especially at 00:32 in the youtube video. That looks really fun, and would be a great addition to any park!
CoasterCrazy said:
Do any of the turns have 90 degree banking?
Click to expand...
Did you even watch the POV? But, no, I doubt it.
 
It's not that small either. It's bigger than any of the Blackpool woodies anyway, so in terms of what the general UK customer is used to, it could look really impressive.

I'm not convinced we're going to see them popping up everywhere either, but I do agree that it's an interesting option for a smaller UK park.

I'm thinking that $3 million price tag is only for the US though?
 
^^To be honest, I think that's the only flaw in the design-the banking! If one of the turns was 90 degrees then it would just top it off and add to the adrenaline...it could be done...

One UK park has just popped into my head that could (and should) buy one of these....Pleasurewood hills! :--D What do you guys think of that? Anyway they do have "wood" in their name...
 
^^ Thats was my thought too. Our rate agains't the dollar at the moment is quite good still, so you would be looking at around £2m, plus shipping. (if it does work like that...)
 
^However GCI are based in the USA, so it may cost more to have the services abroad? Still, it's not going to be vastly more. I think it looks like a great concept. Here's to this becoming the new Roller-skater! :P
 
There's also the issue that materials/labour are more here.

Honestly, I don't think you'd see this for less than a good £4 million, maybe five.
 
^Which still wouldn't be too shabby, that's a little more expensive than Mumbo Jumbo if RCDB is correnct. Of course, you've got land clearing and maintenance on top of the initial building costs, but I'd say you get quite a lot of coaster for the money.
 
Ooh, I just saw this today! It looked really good, if I remember correctly they had a nice little model out. As said before, this could be a great investment for a small or mid sized park looking to get a foothold.
 
I've done a few quick calculations in my head and come up with following example...

Troy cost 6.5 million Euros (4.5 million GBP) back in 2007 and this is for a ride that has 3500ft+ worth of track, Back in the USA in the same year Renegade was built with similar dimensions in length to Troy and Cost 6.5 million USD (3.3 Million GBP) meaning the Cost to build in Europe would roughly stand at a 25-30% mark-up.

So saying this Coaster costs 3 million USD (1.9 Million GBP) adding the markup of 25-30% will put the cost roughly at around 3 Million GBP maximum.

The numbers may not be perfect but its should give a rough idea to the cost.
 
^The problem with that is it's also cheaper to build in Europe than in the UK.

A good but outdated comparison would be Megafobia and Zeus, but, Megafobia was built as a cheap "deal", so that'd be screwed anyway.
 
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