Sunday, November 29, 2009

The Amusing Ads Archive - Hopkins 1994


If there is one thing that Hopkins Rides, Inc is known for it's water rides. The company has been making flumes, river rapids, and Shoot-The-Chutes for decades now. Their attractions can be found around the world in the smallest family parks to the large corporate themers.

As this ad makes perfectly clear, Hopkins was proud that the 'new' Elitch Gardens chose them to create their river rafting attraction, eventually named Disaster Canyon. The modern design of the rapids course, along with many special water features like the one in the concept art above, really helped to make the ride stand out in the park's new location.

The ride is commonly attributed to Intamin, though all my older materials say it was just Hopkins who did the attraction. Perhaps there was a business relationship at the time between the two. Anyone know?

Also take note that Sandor Kernacs is listed at the bottom as VP of Sales, he's now the President of IntaRide, the North American arm of Intamin.


1 comments:

J. said...

The story I've always heard is that GM of AstroWorld was inspired by the Olympics and approached Intamin to do the job. The AstroWorld ride is accepted as the 1st of it's kind