We are in a golden age of roller coaster design. Every year, thrill junkies are treated to new and exciting rides that push the envelope forward and redefine what it means to be a roller coaster fan.
And now, in 2018, a major part of roller coaster fandom is the idea that ride manufacturers themselves should be as famous as the parks in which their creations reside.
For a long time, only the biggest and fastest rides made their designers and manufacturers cult heroes in the roller coaster community. But over time, as the variety of rides has increased, each company has had its unique qualities put on display for all to see. Now, most coaster fans can tell the difference between manufacturers’ creations from look and feel alone.
In this golden age of roller coasters, we also have seen a golden age of ride manufacturers. And so, here’s a quick breakdown of who some of the best roller coaster companies are at the moment, and what makes them unique.
If we left your favorite company off the list, let us know who it is in the comments below.
Bolliger and Mabillard
Image: daveynin, Flickr (license)
Founded in Switzerland in 1988, B&M (as it is known colloquially) grew out of the ashes of another ride manufacturing company, but quickly rose to prominence due to its innovative outlook on what roller coasters could be.
B&M invented the divisive stand-up coaster, as well as the now-ubiquitous floorless model. But the grandest creation of B&M came in 1992, when company founders Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard got a call from Six Flags Great America’s general manager Jim Wintrode. He had an idea for a new kind of roller coaster — one in which guests would ride below the track and conquer inversions, much like a runaway ski lift. That roller coaster became the world’s first inverted roller coaster — Batman: The Ride. And ever since, B&M has been synonymous with incredible inverted coasters.
They’ve made other incredible creations like dive coasters, wing coasters, and of course Fury 325 (currently ranked at or near the top of most roller coaster rankings) — but B&M’s inverted coasters, with their trademark roar, are as iconic as roller coasters get.
Great Coasters International
Image: rollercoasterphilosophy, Flickr (license)
GCI was founded in Pennsylvania in 1994, and ever since, they’ve been doing just what the name says: making great coasters all around the world. While companies like B&M have made their name by innovating and coming up with new styles of roller coasters, GCI has been steadfast in its devotion to the lost art of ride design: wooden roller coasters.
Known for modern classics like Wildcat at Hersheypark, the comapny’s first construction, GCI has endeavored to keep building really fun classic wooden coasters — rides that look and feel like the vintage rides of years gone by, but with modern thrills for new generations.
Two of the company’s most recent works, Mystic Timbers at King’s Island and Wicker Man at Alton Towers, are critically acclaimed wonders of both smooth-yet-daunting thrills and incredible, immersive theming.
It’s rare for a company that makes only wooden roller coasters to have a strong reputation for smoothness and joy, but GCI has gotten there.
Mack Rides
Image: Alex McCabe, Flickr (license)
Mack Rides, technically, was founded well over a century ago, eventually finding its way to amusement park rides in the early 20th century. And yet, for years, it wasn’t a company that was on most coaster super fans’ radar.
It wasn’t that the German manufacturer wasn’t successful — they were extremely successful, particularly in Europe. It was more that their most high profile success in the United States was … the humble wild mouse coaster.
Throughout its history, however, Mack has been a bleeding-edge innovator for roller coaster design. It was the company behind the ahead-of-its-time Journey to Atlantis attraction at SeaWorld. It perfected spinning roller coaster technology on signature rides like Euro-Mir at its home base at Europa Park.
And, importantly, its background in powered roller coasters (that is, roller coasters that have motors in them rather than move solely based on the pull of gravity) gave Mack a leg up in creating the most imaginative launched roller coasters the world has seen.
2018’s biggest coaster was built by a company further down this list, but the year’s breakout coaster had to be Time Traveler at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo. Combining vertical drops, launches, and spinning all into one roller coaster, the masterwork finally gave Mack Ride the prestigious acknowledgement it deserves after a long lifespan building rides for Disney, Europe, and beyond.
Gerstlauer
Image: milst1, Flickr (license)
Another German company, Gerstlauer was founded in 1982 by a former employee of industry titan Anton Schwarzkopf. Similarly to Mack, Gerstlauer begin its life by building simple spinning coasters and bobsled rides that were fun, but not earth-shattering.
But then, in 2003, the company unveiled what would become its calling card — and a major shift in roller coaster design as we knew it: The Euro-Fighter.
Gerstlauer’s Euro-Fighter is a style of roller coaster that is denoted by its small-occupancy vehicles and trains, its vertical lift hills (and beyond-vertical drops), and its many different types of inversions. While most have different layouts and elements within them, they all have a similar visual style that makes them feel connected.
The Euro-Fighter has become a must-have for most mid-sized parks, with its first drop becoming an iconic symbol of the brand’s rise to prominence.
Intamin
Image: andrewb94, Flickr (license)
If Switzerland is the capital of the roller coaster design world, Intamin is its crown jewel. No other company has created the record-breaking and earth-shattering rides that Intamin has made in its history and lived to tell the tale. The closest company in pedigree, B&M, is nearly 20 years younger and hasn’t had nearly the same influence on the landscape as Intamin.
Consider this: The fastest roller coaster in the world, Formula Rossa, is an Intamin creation. The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka, is an Intamin creation. Both Universal Studios and Disney have rides built by Intamin. Even flat rides, like Falcon’s Fury at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, are not too complex for Intamin to handle.
And then, of course, there are the two masterpieces at Cedar Point: Maverick and Millennium Force. The former is a launched whirlwind of inversions and G-forces that has become beloved by the coaster community, while the later is one of the most iconic roller coasters on the face of the earth.
If you like roller coasters, you’ve ridden an Intamin that you love. And you probably already knew the company’s name.
Rocky Mountain Construction
Image: rollercoasterphilosophy, Flickr (license)
But if Intamin is the old guard of roller coaster excellence, Rocky Mountain Construction is the upstart iconoclast.
Founded in 2001, RMC didn’t hit its stride until former Arrow Dynamics guru Alan Schilke came aboard in 2009. He, along with RMC founder Fred Grubb, created what became known as the steel I-box track — and, in doing so, changed roller coasters forever.
Traditional tubular steel construction usually meant that steel roller coasters had their own characteristics and their own types of elements. They were built differently, so they looked and felt different to the wooden roller coasters that preceded them. RMC’s innovation was in creating steel track that looked and performed like wooden track, but in a sturdier and more malleable package.
The result was hybrid steel/wood creations that look more like they erupted off a 12-year-old’s notebook than an AutoCAD program. And yet, RMC managed to do just that: Turn your wildest fantasies about roller coasters into a wacky, thrilling reality.
That’s what the best roller coaster manufacturers do, of course. They take your most terror-inducing dreams and turn them into amalgamations of steel and wood that you can actual experience. And nobody does it better than the companies on this list.
