Matt N
CF Legend
Hi guys. When I was looking back through the General Discussions & Opinions forum at some of the old topics, I found this particularly interesting topic that @Jarrett made back in 2016 about which coaster represents each decade: http://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/the-most-decade-coaster-ever.40058/
So I thought it might be fun to do a similar thing, but with coaster types instead of specific coasters. I'll start from the 1970s as that's when I'd say steel coasters first properly took off, but you can start from whenever. So, these are the coaster types that I'd say represent each decade:
So I thought it might be fun to do a similar thing, but with coaster types instead of specific coasters. I'll start from the 1970s as that's when I'd say steel coasters first properly took off, but you can start from whenever. So, these are the coaster types that I'd say represent each decade:
- 1970s: Arrow/Vekoma Corkscrew - The 1970s is the decade where inversions on coasters started to appear as we know them today, and after Corkscrew at Knott's Berry Farm opened in 1975, it seemed as though most parks across the world were installing coasters of their own with an extremely similar layout to Corkscrew. If you look at all of the Arrow and Vekoma Corkscrew coasters built (excluding relocations), the vast majority of them were built during the 1970s, with a few installations being built in the earlier part of the 1980s.
- 1980s: Arrow/Vekoma Custom Looping Coaster - Now, I know that this is essentially the same basic ride hardware as the coaster type I identified for the 1970s, but here, I'm referring to the larger custom models as opposed to the smaller clones like in the 1970s. Between them, Arrow and Vekoma built 32 of these types of rides, and excluding relocations, quite a number of the original builds were during the 1980s. Many of the major theme parks across the world were building custom loopers in the 1980s, or so it seems.
- 1990s: Inverted Coaster - Now this one was an easy choice for me! I was originally going to limit it to the B&M inverted coaster, but the Vekoma SLC was also an extremely popular choice during the 1990s, especially towards the latter half of the decade! After Batman The Ride at Six Flags Great America took the industry by storm in 1992, absolutely loads of major parks were building inverted coasters. From the Batman clones being built in most Six Flags parks to the huge custom beasts being built in other major parks to the Vekoma SLCs, it seems as though the inverted coaster was the coaster type to build in the 1990s!
- 2000s: Intamin Accelerator Coaster - I'd say that this one was another relatively easy choice for me, as even though only 14 Intamin Accelerator Coasters were built, all of them apart of Formula Rossa at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi were built during the 2000s. Looking back, it seems as though Intamin's hydraulic launch technology was the coaster craze of the 2000s; many major parks were rushing to build this ride type! From the tall, fast monsters like Top Thrill Dragster and Kingda Ka to the pocket rockets like Rita and Senzafiato, it seems like parks were doing whatever they could to get a hydraulic launcher into their coaster selection during the 2000s. And hydraulic launches were literally only being built during the 2000s because as far as I'm aware, the only hydraulic launch coaster built outside the 2000s was Formula Rossa in 2010; none others have been built since.
- 2010s: Multi-Launch Coaster - Now, this one was quite a difficult one to decide. I was originally going to put RMCs forward as the coaster type of the 2010s, but RMCs are still a relatively niche product compared to multi-launchers, in my eyes; in the 8 years since New Texas Giant first opened, RMC have built or are building 20 roller coasters. Multi-launchers, on the other hand; if you lump together all the different types of multi-launcher from the compact Premier Sky Rocket IIs to the sprawling Mack and Intamin multi-launchers, I'd hazard a guess that the number built this decade is at least 40 or 50. The definition of multi-launch coaster is quite broad, so I'm counting both the swing launches (a la Sky Rocket IIs) and the coasters with more than one launch track (a la Mack and Intamin multi-launchers). It seems as though tons of parks have built some form of multi-launch coaster this decade, whatever the type. To me, they just seem like a far more commonly seen type of coaster in this decade than RMCs.
