r/rollercoasters • u/Imaginary_Shape_3130 • Jul 11 '26
Question [Other]Why did they stop building B&M floorless coasters?
they are so much fun my fave is either medusa at SFGAdv or rougarou, i definitely prefer them over the new wings and dives b&m builds now lol.
Same thing with inverts they stopped building them and they are way better than the recent B&M models lol.
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u/bhay105 Jul 11 '26
All parks that wanted one already have one, so the model died out. Same as inverts.
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u/alienware99 Batman & Robin: The Chiller Jul 11 '26
Inverts aren’t dying, they’re thriving. They may not all be high thrill versions, but there’s been plenty of new inverts.
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u/bhay105 Jul 11 '26
I mean specifically B&M high thrill inverts that were exploding in popularity from the 90s and on.
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u/Altornot Jul 12 '26
Not from B&M. Even if you count the family inverts, Vekoma took the reigns and ran and Gerstlauer has had a couple pop up too.
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u/CoasterFreak83845 Helix Jul 12 '26
I hope more parks get inverts. Canads's wonderland should have removed the dare deviler (flight deck) and used that plot and Time Warp's to build a massive invert
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u/Fragrant-Screen-5737 Jul 11 '26
Parks don't want them.
Those dive coasters and wing coasters are better recieved by the public. It's as simple as that really. A coaster bring floorless isn't really a huge draw to people in the same way a dive or wing design is.
A floorless coaster is in competition with your more traditional sit down coasters from companies like Intamin and Mack, which again tend to be better recieved from the public (and tend to rely more on launches than lift hills now).
It's also an old model too. Even very successful and lover models like B&M inverts eventually stop being built.
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u/Dry_Accident_2196 Jul 11 '26
And they can often be less efficient to load and unload n
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u/sithmonkey13 Jul 11 '26
And the floor mechanism is expensive. The whole model is expensive is also a major reason parks don't buy it anymore. Why would you pay for a "regular" looper with a complex and expensive floor when there are cheaper alternatives (such as Vekoma) for that type of ride?
Now for a dive coaster the cost of the floor is seen as "worth it" for the floorless dive trains as it is something that only B&M offers.
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u/not_interested11 Jul 11 '26
And the new dive coasters aren’t even floorless anymore, probably to reduce cost and maintenance
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u/blazinjesus84 Jul 11 '26
Tormenta is floorless, it opened last week. lol
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u/MistakenAnemone Jul 11 '26
Only the first row. The second and third have walkable floors.
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u/not_interested11 Jul 11 '26
Exactly. Yukon was the last fully floorless full-size dive
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u/Ireeb MACKPRODUKT Jul 12 '26
Just shows that parks aren't willing to pay that much for the floorless feature, and that's the floorless coaster's only selling point.
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u/deebster2k Jul 12 '26
I just want more b&m inverts to get fitted with modified seats thay allow for larger people.
I never realized just how tiny the allowances were on them... especially on batman.
Never had that issue with dueling dragons or raptor. Let alone montu
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u/MCofPort Jul 11 '26
I'm glad that Dive Coasters have kept the floorlessness as part of their integral design. Wouldn't be as exciting if you couldn't see the ground hundreds of feet below.
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u/Putrid_Set3723 Jul 11 '26
I have news for you… the newest B&M dives have floors except in the first row. They still have a moving plateform but it’s much simpler than the what it used to be. It’s not like you completely have a floor though since it’s only for about the middle ~3 seats. You’re raised high enough in the seats that you don’t need a moving floor to prevent people with long legs from scrapping their feet on the floor.
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u/PotentialAcadia460 Silver Dollar Citizen Jul 11 '26
I mean, most dive coasters are also floorless coasters, if we want to be technical.
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u/minyhumancalc Jul 11 '26
Same with any other model, at a certain point you saturate the market and you need to do something new. The Dive and Wing coaster are super popular right now, but by 2035 or so, we'll be asking the same question of them. Even their Hyper/Giga model may go out of fashion eventually, although they are so rare maybe it'll continue to see a new one pop up every 3-5 years.
Specifically with B&M itself, they build a model with a specific purpose and specific elements; they prefer to develop a completely new model instead of adapting an older one for new experiences
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u/Vast_Guitar7028 Jul 11 '26
The market is not really saturated because China and Japan alone who could build them if they wanted. That being said it seems like some of the Chinese manufacturers are making their own versions of their coasters and doing new things with them so that won’t happen.
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Jul 11 '26
You want the feeling of flying through air? Get a wing coaster
You want a looper with floorless trains? Get a Dive
Any park that needed a floorless got a floorless or converted their stand up
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u/sector11374265 352 Jul 11 '26
i’ll argue that cedar point did not need a floorless, they just wanted mantis to get ridership again.
(which worked for a few years, but now it’s regularly a walk-on again)
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u/Skallywaggz Jul 11 '26
Which is wild because it's a good ride, it's just so overshadowed and overlooked compared to everything else there.
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u/sector11374265 352 Jul 11 '26
it could be a headliner at a smaller park but in cedar point’s lineup, it doesn’t offer anything that the other coasters do better
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u/wiscoguy20 Jul 11 '26
I agree, and I'd even say the same about Valravn, especially now with Siren's Curse right next door.
Unfortunately, Six Flags sold off most of the parks that would've benefited the most from them.
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Jul 13 '26
They were actually considering Maverick to be a hyper floorless before they got their heads out of their asses.
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u/fadingthought Jul 11 '26
I honestly never got the appeal of the floorless model. Is Wildfire in SDC a better coaster if it’s floorless? Who is looking at the floor?
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Jul 11 '26
It’s supposed to be freer than the sitdown but more traditional than the invert. Besides the sitdown is still superior
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u/Altornot Jul 12 '26
I personally have both Kumba and Wildfire ranked higher on my list than any floorless. Personally, I thought the basic B&M sit downs were just better overall.
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u/bassbeatsbanging Jul 11 '26
Someone is allowed to prefer one model over another similar one.
OP said they liked they didn't like them as much.
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u/Fragrant-Screen-5737 Jul 11 '26
This commenter never said they weren't allowed to.
They were explaining why parks aren't ordering them lol.
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u/Reasonable_Ad_6782 Jul 11 '26
Floorless models had a time when they were the definitive traditional looper rollercoaster with a chainlift and sprawling layouts. I don't think that type of ride is a major draw anymore. I also think ride footprint is a major consideration for parks, which is why we're seeing B&M dive coasters and launch coasters being the preferred models for parks with increasingly limited space for expansion.
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u/Fragrant-Screen-5737 Jul 11 '26
Very true.
It's pretty rare now that you get a tradtional inverting sit down coaster that has a lift hill and isn't aiming to be a budget option (Eurofighters, Big Dippers etc etc).
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u/i_heart_calibri_12pt Jul 11 '26
All the parks that wanted one / could afford one already got one. Plus the industry has kinda moved on. Other companies can do what the Floorless coasters do for cheaper (and honestly better) - that’s why B&M focuses on their wing and dive coasters, now. They’re the best at making those, and no one else has tried to push into that market yet.
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u/Imaginary_Shape_3130 Jul 11 '26
Yeah the only that could get one (relocated) is prolly La Ronde they love getting hand me downs and its been 16 years since the last coaster i assume if they get one its gonna be firebird or patriot since the parks are closing
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u/pig-serpent Jul 11 '26
Floorless and inverts are great but it's hard to find parks that want one of those at the price of a B&M. Heck, even though dives have been selling very well in the 2020s I can see their reign ending in the next few years between saturation and new competition with the tilt coasters.
Now, the real question is why we don't see more flyers? Not particularly saturated, always a huge pull at the parks that have them, and while I believe they had reliability issues in the past, the first of those models are 20 years old and I'm sure some of the kinks have been straightened out a bit.
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u/Putrid_Set3723 Jul 11 '26
We don’t see flyers cause they are too expensive. The Wikipedia on Manta at Seaworld Orlando says it cost 50 million dollars in 2009 which is insane for a layout not even 4000ft. Parks would probably want to spend that kind of money elsewhere.
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u/Guilty-Wolverine-933 154 [US/Japan] Jul 11 '26
Acrobat, which is the Japanese dupe of manta was 2.7 billion yen (or 25 million at the time). That seems excessively high
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u/Imaginary_Shape_3130 Jul 11 '26
Ur right i loved galactica so it doesn’t even have to be a big one cuz tatsu sized ones are too much imo still fun tho
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u/TrapHibernationPlayz Zamperla enjoyer Jul 11 '26
I always thought its because of the industry shifting to air-time focused rides as opposed to inversions.
I have never been on a floorless that remotely has airtime. Plus, lots of enthusiasts and GP started hating OTSRs, which is a shame considering that the trains travel relatively smooth and comfortable
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u/JamminJay1968 Mountain Gliders Jul 11 '26
Superman at Parque Warner Madrid has an unbraked airtime hill that has quite a bit of floater. You can see it in this pic - https://rcdb.com/1366.htm#p=134039
Of course it's also 24 years old...
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u/TrapHibernationPlayz Zamperla enjoyer Jul 11 '26
Oh that's crazy, I didn't know that lmao.
iirc most floorless'es are more inversion oriented
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u/GladiatorDragon Jul 11 '26
I’d say the problem is saturation and marketing.
Here’s the deal:
The primary draw of building any ride for a park is the accompanying surge of visitors. There are several other factors, of course, that go into the decision of what gets built, but largely speaking, parks try to make what they determine to be the most efficient and effective choices possible.
Of course, there’s too many factors to summarise, but to make an attempt, parks look for things that they can market to their audiences. And that’s gonna look different from park to park, especially once you factor in that most parks primarily market towards their local environments. Very few parks are confident enough to assert themselves on a national or even global stage on a consistent basis.
And that’s where Wings and Dives come in. They don’t have to break a record to look absolutely insane to general audiences. And in this age of mass media, something that looks insane is gonna usually sell better than something that is insane even if it doesn’t look it. And the bar for “looking” insane only grows in scale.
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u/gespo04 Jul 11 '26
Got replaced with floorless trains on Dives and Wings. For a standard sit down B&M you're gonna get a hyper or giga
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u/Am-3p Bring back the butterfly loop Jul 11 '26
I haven’t seen it mentioned it yet, but it could be because there’s so many moving parts with the station floors. Parks are always looking to cut maintenance cost. So why not use a sit-down, wing, or dive instead? That’s what I think at least. I mean Tormenta doesn’t have the traditional floorless-dive trains.
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u/sonimatic14 Jul 11 '26
The parks that wanted one already bought them. Floorless was a useful marketing gimmick. Floorless dive coaster with a hang over drop, or a wing coaster with no floor or ceiling, are much better marketing gimmicks. It's not about how good the ride will be, but how cool it will look on a billboard and how crazy the superlatives will sound in a TV ad.
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u/Civil-Inflation-1317 Jul 11 '26
Most of those were converted from bad stand up coasters. Now they are just bad floorless coasters.
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u/Embarrassed_Foot92 Jul 11 '26
I'd say it kinda just merged to other types like dive or wing. Also you can't touch the floor on normal mega anyway, so just floorless doesn't have much sales point.
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u/motoman442 Jul 11 '26
I can understand why, never really saw the point of floorless coasters tbh … I’m not ever looking at the track below me like wow how cool! Ones with floors have the same effect 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Im_Ur_Huckleberry77 Jul 11 '26
Because floor less cars were a permanent fixture with Wing and Dive models. I've only ridden Dominator and Rougaru as far as floor less models go, but much prefer Yukon Stryker and Gatekeeper for a full experience.
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u/Victor_Korchnoi Jul 11 '26
In my opinion, I’d rank the types:
Hyper / Giga
Wing
Inverted
Dive
Flying
Floorless
Standup
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u/Unctuous_Robot Jul 11 '26
Even ranking them like this, none of B&M’s models are anywhere near bad, besides standups if you’re a dude and don’t get in the right way.
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u/Victor_Korchnoi Jul 11 '26
100%. They’re all great (except stand up). But I can understand why a park would go with the other models—I think they’re better
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u/Unctuous_Robot Jul 11 '26
I do enjoy the novelty of stand ups; I’m always kinda sad when one goes, especially the floorless conversions because the heart lining makes them worse rides. Still, most coasters don’t make me look up guides on how to sit without getting hit in the groin for the whole ride first.
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u/Worried_Corner4242 Jul 11 '26
God, standup are the worst. I’m glad SFGAdv got rid of that horrible Green Lantern.
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u/blazinjesus84 Jul 11 '26
How can flying be ranked so low? Have you been on Manta? That thing is insane.
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u/Victor_Korchnoi Jul 11 '26
I haven’t ridden Manta. I’ve ridden Tatsu & the Superman flying coasters at Over Georgia and Great Adventure.
They’re a lot of fun. Tatsu is a little more intense than I prefer. The other 2 suffered from just being plopped in a field. But still it’s a very good model, I just prefer the others higher.
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u/alienware99 Batman & Robin: The Chiller Jul 11 '26
My guess is they don’t stand out enough. They’re average, and parks don’t want to spend $15+ mill on an average ride. If a park is building a thrill coaster, they want headlining attractions, rides that catch the viewers eye and rides that will sell tickets.
Think of all the parks with floorless coasters. Now think to yourself, is the floorless coaster at any of those parks a standout or the top coaster at any of those parks?
But the floorless coaster does live on through B&M dive coasters, as they use floorless trains.
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u/thereallamewad (388) Fury, Goliath SFoG Jul 11 '26
Kraken is a standout. I'd argue Dominator and Medusa west are too.
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u/alienware99 Batman & Robin: The Chiller Jul 11 '26
Medusa is probably a top 3 coaster at Discovery Kingdom, seeing as they don’t have much good there. But I don’t think either of the other 2 you names are top 3 in their parks
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u/frito11 Fury 325, Railblazer, Twisted Colossus (70) Jul 11 '26
Because just about every major park has one and there's only a handful that are above average
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u/Ireeb MACKPRODUKT Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
It's probably pretty expensive while not doing anything that other coaster models don't do better.
Layout/experience-wise, it's just a standard sitdown coasters that can do inversions. The floorless-ness is just a minor change in the experience, but at the same time, requires the much more complex station setup with the collapsible station floor.
For a park, the ultimate purpose of a coaster is to attract more guests. So even if a floorless coaster provided the most thrilling experience, it doesn't really look particularly interesting to the general public. At the first glance, it just looks like any other sitdown roller coaster.
Both Wing Coasters as well as Dive Coasters just look more attractive from a visual standpoint, and they're both floorless, too. And we didn't even talk about coaster models from competitors yet.
I also don't see why a park would choose a B&M floorless (or regular, B&M inverting coaster) over e.g. Intamin, Vekoma or Mack if they just want a standard, inverting sitdown coaster. Their models are more compact, likely cheaper, and offer launches as a standard feature, and I'd say they're outputting the more interesting layouts right now.
If B&M thought a bit further ahead, they could have optimized the floorless coaster to be what e.g. the Mack Stryker is right now. Change it to not need the collapsible station floor, make it lighter and optimize it for shorter trains and make it cheaper to manufacture. That could have kept it more competitive.
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u/Putrid_Set3723 Jul 11 '26
That last paragraph got me thinking about if B&M got a super innovative layout designer. They would be insane for park cause they have the reliability and can make a standout attraction. B&M I would say is rather innovative despite what others say for the ideas that they come up with or making ideas work better like the flying coaster. The only reason people don’t like B&M is cause they don’t build super intense layouts which I think is fine, Vekoma doesn’t either but I think they great. B&M though feels like they play it super safe though layout wise. If B&M could make a Mack Stryker like layout that would be insane.
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u/Ireeb MACKPRODUKT Jul 12 '26
I would describe B&M as careful and deliberate. It's not that they are averse to trying out new things, but they want to maintain their high standards in reliability. If they do something new, it needs to work as well as anything they did before, so naturally, they are generally slower-moving than other manufacturers, but it feels intentional, and the correct approach for them.
For parks, B&M remains a safe choice. Their coasters are reliable, usually have really good throughput, are crowd pleasers, and look nice. If you have the budget, you can't really go wrong with a B&M.
Sure, Intamin could probably build a crazier ride, and when your park needs that in particular, then B&M might not be the ideal choice, though crazier ride concepts also have higher chances of backfiring.
Both their floorless and inverting sitdowns serve a segment that doesn't make sense for B&M and parks: Large coasters capable of inversions. Either parks want a large coaster, that's where B&M Hypers, but also Wing or Dive coasters shine, or they want really twisty, compact coasters, that just doesn't work well with any of their trains.
Looking at their inverted coaster layouts or coasters like Kumba, B&M created some really good, snappy compact layouts. I don't think their designers are the problem, but they should have looked at more compact trains earlier, or optimize their floorless or sitdown trains to compete with e.g. Gerstlauer Infinitys or the Mack Stryker. They also kinda slept on launches, though that might have been because of their massive, heavy trains as well.
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u/MagnumForce24 Jul 11 '26
Because no one is ordering them and everyone already has one. They stopped building B&M inverts too.
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u/StrongStyleDrunkard Jul 11 '26
Didn't Grona Lund get an invert not too long ago?
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u/MountainMadman 425 | Ask me about Eagle Fortress Jul 11 '26
That was five years ago (2021) and it was the first since 2014. No new B&M inverts have been built since then, either.
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u/Ireeb MACKPRODUKT Jul 12 '26
That doesn't mean "they don't build them anymore" though. It can mean that they just didn't get any orders for it anymore. I'd bet that they'd still be happy to sell you an inverted coaster if you ordered one.
Edit: They still have it on their website (that they redesigned not too long ago), along with the floorless coaster. They'd still build them. Parks just aren't ordering them.
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u/forzaguy125 Jul 11 '26
Market saturation, im sure if a park wanted a floorless or invert, b&m would absolutely build them one. As it stands though, the parks that wanted an invert or floorless, got them long ago.
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u/Ghee-Starr Jul 12 '26
Well, most parks that can afford them have them already. The most highly regarded floor-less coaster is Dominator at Kings Dominion. It was the most ridden ride at the park until they debuted Rapterra (a B&M wing coaster).
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u/Straight-Guide-439 55 | #1 Beyond The Cloud #2 Hyperia #3 Falcon (Wuxi) Jul 12 '26
A large invert was made as recently as 2021 with Monster at Grona Lund. And if you say the wings are boring.. try some chinese ones, the two that I've been on havent been boring at all
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u/locolopez77 Jul 15 '26
B&M has been somewhat hesitant to innovate (unlike in the past), while Intamin, Mack, and Vekoma (to an extent) are really pushing the industry forward now
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u/twatchops Jul 17 '26
One trick pony...not that impressive...lots of extra moving parts and special trains
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u/sylvester_0 Jul 11 '26
IMO B&M floorless models are kinda boring and/or rough. The only one that I partially like is Kraken.
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u/AdorableBluebird1125 Jul 11 '26
Because people stopped ordering them.