What's new

One-off coasters you want sequels for

Vekoma Big Air - https://rcdb.com/8656.htm
That massive U shaped shuttle coaster where the cars still spin at the top of the spike. I don't even know if its any good but am curious to find out.
I think there's a good reason only one of these was ever built. The spinning (or rather turning) mechanism hasn't been in use since soon after it opened and while this is purely anecdotal, considering the fact that it was down for maintenance for about 9 months at the time I visited, doesn't exactly make it sound like the ride is particularly reliable even when you take the spinning mechanism out of the equation.

Another one that I haven't seen mentioned yet is Vekoma Stingray. A compact flying coaster that received mostly rave reviews. Only one has ever been built, but it sadly closed down with the park in 2018. Hopefully it will reappear somewhere at some point, but the model seems to be pretty dead now.
 
Another one that I haven't seen mentioned yet is Vekoma Stingray. A compact flying coaster that received mostly rave reviews. Only one has ever been built, but it sadly closed down with the park in 2018. Hopefully it will reappear somewhere at some point, but the model seems to be pretty dead now.
Really? I thought most people who rode it thought it was turd.

I sadly missed out, as it was closed the day I visited the park. :(
 
Really? I thought most people who rode it thought it was turd.

I sadly missed out, as it was closed the day I visited the park. :(
Hah, whoops. Selective memory then. Looking through the trip reports of people that have been there, it appears to be a bit of a hit or miss, yeah. I think Richard Bannister has it as one of his all-time favorites, but other than that it appears that people have found it to be pretty uncomfortable and paired with rather awful capacity, I can see why there was only the one ever built.

I guess Vekoma had a decent sales team with selling unreliable prototypes to newly built Asian parks back then.
 
So your saying the inverting suspended coaster still has a chance 🤣 I'd hope any (movie) sequel would overcome the problems of the first but know that's hardly the case.

Stingray was fine & fun. Nothing bad but all other flyers I have done left a more lasting impression. I hadn't done a standard Dutchman at the time to swoon over how much better Stingray was. FLY tech is the correct step forward.

People will have been overly pleased they got a ride in the short window it was available. And once you've ridden there's little reason to hang around given the better stuff in all directions. There will never be a chance to double check if it was actually as good as the most hyped people claim.
 
Another one on my list is Balder. Intamin P'n'P woodies are generally huge and expensive, but Balder proved they could be built smaller and more compact too - without detracting from the ride experience. Balder opened to rave reviews in 2003 and still receives rave reviews 18 years later. It's a wonderful coaster in a somewhat small package, a classic airtime machine that has aged incredibly well ... but it is the only one of its kind.

Intamin got a toe into the wooden coaster market, but GCI and Gravity Group managed to overtake it completely. Martin & Vleminckx carved out a niche in China as well, but as far as I can tell GCI and Gravity Group have built every single all-wood coaster in the West for the past decade or more (which, to be fair, is a rather small group to begin with). Intamin's P'n'P woodies turned out too expensive to be competitive, and so no more were sold.
 
Another one on my list is Balder. Intamin P'n'P woodies are generally huge and expensive, but Balder proved they could be built smaller and more compact too - without detracting from the ride experience. Balder opened to rave reviews in 2003 and still receives rave reviews 18 years later. It's a wonderful coaster in a somewhat small package, a classic airtime machine that has aged incredibly well ... but it is the only one of its kind.

Intamin got a toe into the wooden coaster market, but GCI and Gravity Group managed to overtake it completely. Martin & Vleminckx carved out a niche in China as well, but as far as I can tell GCI and Gravity Group have built every single all-wood coaster in the West for the past decade or more (which, to be fair, is a rather small group to begin with). Intamin's P'n'P woodies turned out too expensive to be competitive, and so no more were sold.

Ugh, yes.

I've been praying we could get another PnP in Europe (preferably UK) at some point.
I'd be the first one to gatecrash BPB with champagne and lobster to watch them take a bulldozer to Big Dipper / National so that Intamin can bring the UK some real airtime!
 
Another one on my list is Balder. Intamin P'n'P woodies are generally huge and expensive, but Balder proved they could be built smaller and more compact too - without detracting from the ride experience. Balder opened to rave reviews in 2003 and still receives rave reviews 18 years later. It's a wonderful coaster in a somewhat small package, a classic airtime machine that has aged incredibly well ... but it is the only one of its kind.

Intamin got a toe into the wooden coaster market, but GCI and Gravity Group managed to overtake it completely. Martin & Vleminckx carved out a niche in China as well, but as far as I can tell GCI and Gravity Group have built every single all-wood coaster in the West for the past decade or more (which, to be fair, is a rather small group to begin with). Intamin's P'n'P woodies turned out too expensive to be competitive, and so no more were sold.
Sorry for going off on a tangent, but with regard to the bolded; aren’t M&V technically something to do with Gravity Group? Don’t they build GG-designed rides?

I was under the impression that M&V were a manufacturer who built Gravity Group coasters (from what I can tell, Gravity Group don’t actually manufacture their own rides in the same way as GCI do, instead subcontracting them out), particularly in the East, in the same vein as Western Gravity Group coasters are mostly built by Gravitykraft. So I thought that most of M&V’s recent Chinese coasters were effectively Gravity Groups.

Do correct me if I’m wrong there, though.

I do agree with your sentiment, though; I do find it interesting how no other parks went for a compact Intamin pre-fab, as I’d wager that something like Balder would also have cost less than a monster like El Toro!
 
I do agree with your sentiment, though; I do find it interesting how no other parks went for a compact Intamin pre-fab, as I’d wager that something like Balder would also have cost less than a monster like El Toro!
Well yes, but something like Balder also probably costs a lot more than something like Troy. That's the real issue with the Intamin pre-fabs, they don't scale down that well.
 
Last edited:
This is going to be a very controversial one, I can sense, but I'd actually quite like to see a sequel to Raging Bull at Six Flags Great America.

I know that seems like a strange one given that many consider it to be among the weakest B&M hyper coasters, but Raging Bull was built in 1999, and was one of B&M's first hypers; the ride type has come a long way since then, and I think B&M could do a lot with a hyper twister coaster nowadays. The likes of Fury 325 and the unopened Hot Go hyper (probably the closest we've seen to a B&M hyper twister since Bull) amongst others show that B&M can do really cool stuff with hypers without necessarily having to resort to a regular out and back layout, in my opinion, and with the elements on their hypers having grown more daring in recent years, I'd be really keen to see what they could do with a hyper twister nowadays!
 
Top