(we're getting off-topic).
Wasn't Rita a cancelled order from elsewhere or similar?
Yes, I’ve heard rumblings that Rita was meant for another park that cancelled the project, which is why Towers were able to pick it up so quickly.
I also heard that the reason they went for it was because the infamously cancelled cross-valley wooden coaster was due to be an Intamin pre-fab, so when that project was scrapped, Intamin presented Rita to Tussauds/Towers as an alternative coaster project to pursue.
Rita was an odd addition, even at the time. There was zero rumour or talk of a new development, never mind an Intamin, at the beginning of or even will into the (terrible) 2004 season. Suddenly, they completely shut off UG Land including Corkscrew and began digging it up entirely. The way it's shoehorned in is still absolutely illogical to my brain. Stealth was already in planning prior to Rita. I am confident to the day that some imaginative financial politics must have been involved.
Wait, so there was literally no advance warning, or even inside rumblings of a coaster project coming, before Ug Land shut in September 2004? I’m surprised that Rita would have been that much of a short-term project; I thought new coasters took 4-5 years to plan, so surely Rita would have been at least thought about in 2000-2001?
That’s quite something, thinking about it; that would literally be akin to Merlin shutting Forbidden Valley (as an example) tomorrow and saying “right, we’re building an Intamin Blitz here for 2022!”, which I literally can’t imagine happening. I mean, I’d probably die of excitement if that happened, but I certainly can’t imagine something that sudden happening under Merlin!
Leading it back to Spinball; I have to say, I think the early to mid 2000s would have been a fascinating era in Towers’ history to live through! As much as the likes of Spinball and Rita aren’t particularly well liked today, there was a huge amount of successive, back-to-back investment during the 2000s, if you think about it; between 2002 and 2007, there was Air in 2002 (£12m), swiftly followed by Splash Landings/Duel/Berry Bish Bash in 2003 (£50m combined, surely? SLH allegedly cost £40m, and I can’t imagine Duel & Bish Bash were cheap; Duel especially must have cost at least £5m if it was a similar Sally/Triotech refurb to many modern-day interactive dark ride refurbs), Spinball in 2004 (£4m), Rita in 2005 (£8m), CATCF & Driving School in 2006 (getting on for £10m, surely; CATCF cost £8m, and I’d imagine Driving School was at least £1m, if not closer to £2m) and finally Haunted Hollow, Extraordinary Golf & Dung-Heap in 2007 (a bit of a cheaper year compared with 2005 & 2006, but probably still a good £4-5m or so).
So as much as Charterhouse/DIC’s tenure is much maligned, there was actually a heck of a lot of investment during that period; by my estimates, the total invested between 2002 & 2007 would have been about
£88million, which is a lot of money! And given that was followed by the huge investment under early Merlin, the 2000s must have been an exciting decade to be a Towers fan!
If you think about it, I guess the park was still kind of in its growth phase in the 2000s, with all this investment, and didn’t really mature until the 2010s.