Giant evolution
The Giant Evolution is an amusement ride and the heaviest transportable carousel ever built. To date, only two travel facilities and a park have been built, which have been christened Evolution and Imperator . Due to the uneconomical construction, it can be assumed that no further plants will follow.
Technical data of the Imperator
The Imperator, which requires a floor space of 20 × 24 meters, was available for its premiere in 1992 for around 6 million DM from the joint manufacturers Bailey & Nauta-Bussink. The approximately 34.6 m high shop has a total weight of 275 tons. Each of the 16 gondolas can accommodate up to four people, resulting in a total capacity of 64 people.
When setting up, the supports are set up first, only then is the swivel arm mounted from above. For this reason, a 400-tonne crane is required for assembly and dismantling, which previously had to be rented by the showman and which increased the costs immensely.
The history of the two Imperator systems
The evolution
The prototype, the "Evolution" , was delivered to the German showman Eberhard in 1992 and celebrated its world premiere in June 1992 at the Düsseldorf Rheinkirmes . Eberhard traveled to large and profitable fairgrounds with Evolution for several years, but then sold the business in favor of the Airwolf. After a guest appearance in the Italian amusement park Mirabilandia, from 1999 the business was in the US amusement park “ Six Flags Great Adventure” in New Jersey . However, Evolution only stood here until 2002. During the three years there were constant technical faults, so that only a few trips took place.
In the spring of 2003, after a technical overhaul and re-theming, the amusement ride was renamed "XCalibur" in another Six Flags organization park, the Park Six Flags "St. Louis ”(Missouri) and has been operating there ever since.
The emperor
The second plant, the "Imperator", was built in 1992 by the Dutch company Nauta-Bussink & Bailey. The first owner was the German showman Aigner , who caused a sensation with the Imperator at the Munich Oktoberfest in 1992. Since the travel company was not profitable even for the good economic conditions at the time, it was sold after two years and was in the Vienna Prater from 1994 .
In 2004 it is again the owner of the Evolution prototype who, to the great astonishment of the professional world, apparently wanted to try again with an Imperator system. He bought the former rival business Imperator, had it dismantled in the Vienna Prater and repainted and renovated at the depot in Hamburg. The new premiere took place in the summer on the Hamburg Summer Cathedral .
Since then, the business has only traveled to a few and only very large fairgrounds, presumably due to the high economic costs and the long set-up and dismantling times, before it was to be sold to the company Magic Fair Attractions (Netherlands) at the beginning of 2006 and shipped from them to China. However, the business ended its voyage in the Port of Hamburg, where it narrowly escaped a foreclosure auction. The current storage location has been unknown since then.