Remembering Cedar Point's Mantis

It is only a matter of hours until Cedar Point's Mantis stand-up roller coaster closes for the last time.  Already announced to be transforming into Rougarou as a floorless coaster in 2015, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the original Mantis announcement materials.

Many moons ago when new rides were announced we used to receive packets in the snail mail with materials from the Parks - that's probably a weird concept for many of you!  Above is the logo sheet that was sent by the park for use in publishing, however I scanned it in so it looks perdy.  As we all know, Mantis was originally announced to be named Banshee, but changed shortly thereafter.

While fact sheets are still utilized on websites these days, they also were printed and mailed once upon a time.  Here is Mantis' fact sheet, covering the basics of the ride.  Most of these statistics will stay the same when it becomes Rougarou, due to using the same layout.

And speaking of layout, the park also sent this look at Mantis' structure to give a visual impression of what was to come.  I'm sure many ride fans studied this image for days, excited to give Mantis a try the following Spring. 

Though not a part of the press materials when the ride was announced, the park did a nice spread on the coaster in the 1996 Getaway Guide, seen above.  They even included some neat sketches of the stand-up coaster trains, along with their color designs.

Hopefully everyone got to the Point to get in their final Mantis rides by now - if not you still have a few hours until it fades into history!