Visitors to the park are in for an unforgettable adventure as they become part of the movie's stunt team. The ride mixes speed, hairpin turns, pyrotechnics, sound and water with technological magic to bring the film's final chase scene to life, using people, not images, to re-enact the scene.

 

    A 100-person team of engineers, architects, industrial designers, composers, sound men, and members of    Maryland's own Premier Rides worked with Mr. Cobb from 2003 to develop the coaster for the Virginia theme park.

 

    After three groups of four riders each enter their own train of 75 percent scale linked Mini Coopers, they are     accelerated from zero to 50 mph and into a helix track (a design accomplishment that is the first of its kind) to pull nearly four Gs through that first turn.

 

    Referred to as a launch coaster, the ride uses a linear induction system to propel and stop riders. Each train of cars has aluminum fins on its sides that stick below the track level. The tracks have a series of magnets that turn on and off as the fin goes through them. Using the theory of attraction and repulsion with magnetics, the fins are pushed out at very high speeds with incredible power -- enough power to move an almost 4-ton vehicle from zero to 50 mph in three seconds.

 

    The ride will not be remembered for record-breaking drops, its size or speed, but Mr. Cobb hopes it will stand out for its authentic feel and cinema-merging experience.

 

    "Just like a movie has a pace and emotional beats to it, a coaster needs to have a pace," he says. "So we really worked hard on making sure the ride had beats to it and a flow."

 

    Riders will revisit six scenes from the movie that pare down the final chase sequence into 90 seconds of thrills, including dodging police cars, flying down subway stairs, narrowly avoiding helicopter gunfire, moving through a sewer tunnel, and plunging through a billboard and into a Los Angeles aqueduct.


    Not surprisingly, the first-time rider has so much to absorb, it just becomes a blur, which is a good thing for Mr. Cobb -- the more people go back for another ride, the more they appreciate some of the attraction's finer points,  including the cars' authenticity.

 

The Italian Job Turbo Coaster at Paramount King's Dominion theme park.

The Italian Job Turbo Coaster at Paramount's Kings Dominion theme park.  Jacquie Kubin (Special to The Washington Times)

Chasing thrills at Kings Dominion

By Joseph Szadkowski
June 22, 2006

DOSWELL, Va. Critics routinely refer to big-budget action movies as "roller-coaster rides," so developers at Paramount's Kings    Dominion decided to embrace the cliche to deliver an attraction for the thrill-seeking film audience.

 

    The park's new Italian Job Turbo Coaster takes its name from a 2003 film that starred BMW's Mini Cooper S along with actors Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron and Edward Norton. Selecting the cinematic effort for a theme-park experience was a no-brainer for Dave Cobb, senior creative director for Paramount Parks.


    "'The Italian Job' has one of the best car chases in movie      history. Not only that, but all of the stunts were real, no [computer-generated imagery] in there, all real driving, and also, it stars one of the most recognizable cars in the world," he says.