Gerstlauer Amusement Rides

Description

Gerstlauer Amusement Rides GmbH is a Bavarian manufacturer of roller coasters and flat rides headquartered in Münsterhausen, Germany. The company traces its origins to 1968, when founder Hubert Gerstlauer began his professional career at the Schwarzkopf company in the same town. In 1982 he established Gerstlauer Elektro GmbH in nearby Edelstetten, initially producing control systems, lighting, and pneumatic systems for amusement rides. A decade later, the company relocated to Münsterhausen after acquiring the former Schwarzkopf facilities, and by 2007 had broadened its scope sufficiently to adopt its current name. The product portfolio spans several distinct coaster and ride categories. The Euro-Fighter, introduced at BonBon-Land in Denmark in 2003, established Gerstlauer's reputation in the extreme-angle segment with its vertical lift hill and a beyond-vertical drop of 97 degrees. That threshold was later surpassed by Takabisha at Fujikyu Highland in Japan, which opened in 2011 with a 121-degree drop angle and earned a Guinness World Record as the steepest roller coaster in the world at the time. The record was broken again in 2019 by the Euro-Fighter TMNT Shellraiser at Nickelodeon Universe in New Jersey, which achieved a 121.5-degree drop. The Infinity Coaster platform produced another record-holder in 2013: The Smiler at Alton Towers Resort in the United Kingdom, delivering 14 inversions in a single circuit, a figure unprecedented in the industry. In 2021, the delivery of the Family Suspended Coaster Lipovitan Rocket☆Luna at Yomiuriland in Japan marked both the company's 100th roller coaster and the premiere of its first suspended coaster type. Beyond coasters, Gerstlauer manufactures several flat ride formats. The Sky Roller, first presented in 2008, received the Bavarian State Prize in 2017. The Sky Fly interactive ride debuted that same year at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. The Giant Wheel program, launched in 1997, produced the world's highest transportable ferris wheel at 60 meters with enclosed gondolas for the Swiss operator Hablützel, a unit exhibited at EXPO 2000 in Hannover. The company's output has been recognized consistently across the European and international trade award circuit. Installations have received distinctions from the Golden Ticket Awards, European Star Awards, Park World Excellence Awards, Worldofparks Awards, and the German FKF Award across multiple consecutive years. Recent recipients include the Airtime Coaster Mecalodon at Walibi Belgium, the Spinning Coaster Cétautomatix at Parc Astérix, and the Sky Fly Pixarus at Toverland, which earned the Park World Excellence Award for Best Ride of the Year in 2023.