Long Lost Cedar Point Wooden Racing Coaster Rediscovered
Over the the last few weeks, we have highlighted several proposed coasters that were never built in our “Lost Concepts” series. This week’s feature is a record-breaking racing coaster that was proposed, redesigned, and built as a different type of coaster.
In the mid 1970’s Cedar Point was in the midst of a rebirth. In the 10 years after adding Blue Streak, the park’s first major coaster since the 1929 Cyclone, the park was adding multiple coasters such as the Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Wildcat, and Jumbo Jet. After these additions, the park looked towards several firms to add revolutionary new coasters to the park.
In early concept art from the parks 1975 master plan (some of which is shown below), the whole middle section of the park (where Top Thrill Dragster is now) was set for a massive expansion. The new section of the park was joined to the main midway by a monorail (with stations strikingly similar to the recently opened Contemporary Resort). The plan also included a new Noah’s Ark attraction, a log flume, and a new carousel plaza.
The highlight of the expansion would be two large roller coasters. The first, would be an Arrow Corkscrew coaster. Unlike the Corkscrew coaster that now stands at Cedar Point, this was to be a standard Arrow Corkscrew model featuring two corkscrews.
The second major attraction would be a wooden racing coaster located on the island that is currently the home of Forbidden Frontier on Adventure Island. At the time the ride was being proposed, wooden racing coasters were the latest fad in the industry as Racer, Rebel Yell, Thunder Road, and Rolling Thunder were crowd favorites. Furthermore, new racing coasters were being planned for Magic Mountain.
This wooden coaster would take riders up nearly 120 feet before taking them through 8 thrilling drops. It is interesting to note that the early concept art indicates that this is a Mobius Loop coaster, which would have made it the world’s longest wooden coaster at the time. It would have likely been manufactured by International amusement Devices (IAD) based out of Sandusky, Ohio.
This ride was being planned for the 1978 season. It’s plausible that with some conflicts of interest with IAD, and Arrow’s work with Corkscrew in 1975-76, up-selling them a larger prototype ride that was reliable won over many at Cedar Point. Convincing the park to make the coaster out of their tubular rails, Arrow redesigned the ride into the Gemini coaster that made it’s debut in 1978 and still stands today. This collaboration later evolved and the two worked on four more rides until their final project (Snake River Falls) in 1993.
You can experience Gemini in it’s “original design” by watching this video of the recreation below!
Are you happy Arrow’s tubular rail version of Gemini was chosen? or would you rather have seen the racing woodie? Let us know in the comments below or on our socials!
For tickets and more information about Cedar Point, visit the official Cedar Point website by clicking here.
Stay connected with Coaster Nation!
facebook: facebook.com/coasternation
twitter: @Coaster_Nation
Subscribe on YouTube!
MORE GREAT VIDEOS!
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.
You must be logged in to post a comment.