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Weird, Wacky & Strange Coaster Bits

Here's one of the strangest rides I've ever come across, It was brought to my attention the other day by a friend Ultro on Discord but so far I've found so little info this is more of an appeal for information from anyone that might know more.

This ride was called Mud Rider/Mad Rider (マッドライダー) at Minamichita Green Valley (南知多グリーンバレイ) in Japan and I believe it operated in the early 2000s but for a very short amount of time.

It seems the ride would be dropped down a steep ski jump style track over a lake before jumping off the end and being being caught above the water by two ropes attached to either side of the car.

The ride was featured on a Japanese TV show about thrill rides from Chukyo TV which is I believe these screen grabs originally came from.
However as usual with Japan finding things on anything from about pre 2010 is really bloody difficult and I haven't managed to dig up the clip itself, just numerous references to it.

The source for these images is this Japanese Youtube Video of Japans most extreme rides https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EwWhOE5W1I

But I'd love to see the original video clip of the ride operating.

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Almost as weird is this proto-4D coaster featured in the same video:


Nothing about ”Sledge Hammer” comes up on RCDB so I assume this was some prototype that never went anywhere?
 
Almost as weird is this proto-4D coaster featured in the same video:


Nothing about ”Sledge Hammer” comes up on RCDB so I assume this was some prototype that never went anywhere?
Correct it was a prototype they built at their yard as a proof of concept. Unfortunately no one ever picked it up.

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The prototype at the yard was essentially the first drop, raven turn and rise into the airtime hill from this concept layout

The videos make it look pretty brutal but would have been really interesting to see one built.

Hoei Sangyo always seemed like a company with bigger ideas than resources.
 
Not a coaster but "weird flat rides" doesn't probably warrant it's own thread. I just discovered that HUSS made one single "Frisbee XL" model, that's pretty hard to find any information about, especially hard to find videos of (because it's a regional park in Korea that's SBNO, I haven't found any) or HUSS' own promo material for the model. Unlike the Giant Frisbee that came shortly after, the Frisbee XL was simply the classic HUSS Frisbee model, with a taller height, more powerful swing and outward facing seats. But no, not like most outward facing pendulum rides, this had a floor and the old fashioned tire driven swing, like pirate ships or indeed the standard classic Frisbee.

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(Images from RCDB and Parkvault) The ride in question is Freeswing at Tongdo Fantasia, which I didn't know existed until I browsed which parks had the most recently built Arrow Loopers, Tongdo Fantasia's being pretty recent. But one of the RCDB pictures shows this ride, which I was confused by it's visage immediately. I saw the early 00's HUSS restraints and assumed it was an official conversion of a classic Frisbee ride to outward facing, given how unconventional the ride is with a floor and still the tyre swing mechanism, but no, by what I can find this is an official HUSS model that was sold to Tongdo Fantasia like this, new.

As a flat ride guy it does pain me how much less info there often is available about quirkier flats, like this or that weird Togo ferris wheel on a stick thing, for example.
 
Not a coaster but "weird flat rides" doesn't probably warrant it's own thread. I just discovered that HUSS made one single "Frisbee XL" model, that's pretty hard to find any information about, especially hard to find videos of (because it's a regional park in Korea that's SBNO, I haven't found any) or HUSS' own promo material for the model. Unlike the Giant Frisbee that came shortly after, the Frisbee XL was simply the classic HUSS Frisbee model, with a taller height, more powerful swing and outward facing seats. But no, not like most outward facing pendulum rides, this had a floor and the old fashioned tire driven swing, like pirate ships or indeed the standard classic Frisbee.

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(Images from RCDB and Parkvault) The ride in question is Freeswing at Tongdo Fantasia, which I didn't know existed until I browsed which parks had the most recently built Arrow Loopers, Tongdo Fantasia's being pretty recent. But one of the RCDB pictures shows this ride, which I was confused by it's visage immediately. I saw the early 00's HUSS restraints and assumed it was an official conversion of a classic Frisbee ride to outward facing, given how unconventional the ride is with a floor and still the tyre swing mechanism, but no, by what I can find this is an official HUSS model that was sold to Tongdo Fantasia like this, new.

As a flat ride guy it does pain me how much less info there often is available about quirkier flats, like this or that weird Togo ferris wheel on a stick thing, for example.
Not any new info but a video of the ride operating for those who wish to see.

 
Not a coaster but "weird flat rides" doesn't probably warrant it's own thread. I just discovered that HUSS made one single "Frisbee XL" model, that's pretty hard to find any information about, especially hard to find videos of (because it's a regional park in Korea that's SBNO, I haven't found any) or HUSS' own promo material for the model. Unlike the Giant Frisbee that came shortly after, the Frisbee XL was simply the classic HUSS Frisbee model, with a taller height, more powerful swing and outward facing seats. But no, not like most outward facing pendulum rides, this had a floor and the old fashioned tire driven swing, like pirate ships or indeed the standard classic Frisbee.

They don't add anything to the discussion, but I've just dug out some pictures of it from my visit there back in 2007.

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They don't add anything to the discussion, but I've just dug out some pictures of it from my visit there back in 2007.
Who cares if they don't? It's still super cool! Pics of it are still relatively rare, especially on the English speaking side of the internet. I wish there was a flat database of some sort but I know it'd be way harder to keep track of, especially given where you draw the line between a meaningless kiddie ride and a major family attraction being way harder than where you draw the line on what is and isn't a roller coaster, and there aren't nearly as many flat ride peeps as there are coaster peeps (I understand why, just saying). It's just manufacturers delete all reference off their websites once they stop selling a model so it's hard to know when a ride truly goes extinct etc.

It is hilarious though how high that thing is off the ground. Those giant concrete blocks everything is sitting on.
 
There used to be a flat ride database website called The Flat Joint but I don’t think it exists anymore but it was a useful resource 😀
 
In the same vein as the Frisbee XL, here's a flat ride from Japan, Sea Paradise to be specific that is much easier to find footage of but I have absolutely no idea who made it. Thing is, this looks like someone took the gondola hub off of a HUSS Condor ride, stuck a tower through it and made it a balloon style ride, but there are 8 gondolas, not 7 like a Condor and obviously the centre of the hub is too small to do that anyway. However, the structure carrying the gondolas is very similiar in style to a Condor/Troika/Tristar hub/sweep, and the gondolas (if you look up close ups, on Sea Paradise's website for instance) also look extremely similiar in style to a Condor, to where the cover photo on the park's website makes it look like a Condor ride initially.

 
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