Who is the Best Roller Coaster Manufacturer

On one hand, RMC is the most consistent. Even though I've only ridden three of their rides, all of them were top-tier and two of them are in my top 5. However, most of their rides are the same- powerful hybrid coasters that deliver insane airtime. They haven't branched out since the debut of the Raptors.

Intamin hits the highest highs. Velocicoaster and Hagrid's are my top two, and Intamin is constantly trying to revolutionize the coaster world. But most of their rides are just okay- mediocre at best.

Honorable mentions go to GCI, Vekoma, and Mack. GCI produces the best woodies on the planet pretty consistently, and Vekoma/ Mack have made so many bucket- list coasters that I haven't ridden enough of to call either my favorite.

So my #1 is B&M. They produce the best flyers, inverts, and wings. Their coasters are usually smooth (save for the newest ones) and last a long time. They're high-capacity and usually become icons of the park. They deliver high positives and incredible negatives on hypers and gigas. I hope they go back to the glory days before they end up like arrow.

I think if you would have asked this question 8-10 years ago, the answer would have easily been B&M. While I think B&M is still a top manufacturer, the rest of the industry has caught up at a time when the top dog has slipped a bit. Some of this is because there are so many parks with "big" B&M coasters that there aren't as many opportunities for the Swiss manufacturer to push the envelope (not that they were the most innovative to begin with). B&M has spent much of the past 10 years refining their designs and finding ways to make their products more accessible with their recent family coasters.

Over that same 8-10 year period, RMC has arisen as a major player, but they are a bit of a 1-trick pony. They essentially have 3 primary designs (single rail, renovated hybrid, and ground-up) that have very similar characteristics. While they have 3 of the top 10 coasters on the planet based on most rankings (Steel Vengeance, Iron Gwazi, and Zadra) with another 10 coasters that rank inside the top 100, it's still too early to call them the best considering their limited product line.

Intamin went through the early 2000's on a mission to break B&M's dominance, and went toe to toe. However, their drive to break new ground and innovate sometimes went too far with a series of embarrassing missteps that made parks question why they should spend tens of millions of dollars on a coaster that may not work as designed or even worse, might hurt a guest. Perilous Plunge, Shoot the Rapids, TTD, Kingda Ka, and Superman: Ride of Steel (SFNE) cause physical injuries, while other coasters like Maverick, Intimidator 305, Volcano, and others had issues with their designs that caused the company to make major modifications. For much of this period, if you wanted to make headlines (though you never knew if they'd be positive or negative), you installed an Intamin, but if you wanted a steady, people-eating coaster, you bought a B&M. However, over the past 8-10 years, Intamin has had a serious renaissance with designs that push the envelope of innovation without significantly risking the reliability of their coasters. The result has been some of the best new coasters in the world like Hagrid's, Velocicoaster, Toutatis, Pantheon, and Taron.

Vakoma is like the little engine that could. While they've produced some of the most widely ridden roller coasters in the world, most people don't really think about Vekoma when they're riding their top creations because they're all in Disney parks. The Vekomas that enthusiasts think about when they hear the name are all painful relics of a time period where the company sold clones of designs to dozens of parks around the world. The SLC, boomerang, inverted boomerang, giant inverted boomerang, and flying dutchman dominated the coaster landscape in the 90's and early 00's, and Vekoma was more than happy to keep selling these to any park that wanted one with very little innovation beyond what the company was doing in collaboration with Disney with Expedition Everest probably being the pinnacle of their design from this era. However like Intamin over the past 8-10 years, Vekoma has come back to life, though in the case of the Dutch manufacturer, they have sprinkled their new designs across all corners of the globe and for all different types of theme park guests. From the innovative and thrilling F.L.Y. to their line of family boomerang coasters that are as fun for kids as they are for their parents, Vekoma has hit a new gear that has them poised to perhaps take more market share though they have yet to design a consensus top 10 roller coaster.

Premier is my wildcard, because they've consistently produced some solid designs, but have occasionally sacrificed comfort for innovation. I would say that there aren't enough Premier coasters in the world to put them on the same level as B&M, Intamin, or Vekoma, but there aren't a lot of stinkers in their catalogue. With Alpen Fury debuting this year, Premier made a loud claim to be in consideration for one of the top coaster innovators in the industry.

Finally, Mack is making a claim to be the party crasher with a top tier lineup that features some of the best coasters in the world. Stardust Racers, Voltron, Ride to Happiness, Time Traveler, and Helix show what the German manufacturer can do, and their new Stryker coaster line is poised to be the next go-to coaster model every park in the world wants to buy.

However, with the competition tightening and more top coasters coming from smaller manufacturers, I still see this as a 2-horse race between B&M and Intamin with Intamin inching ahead in my book because of their top-heavy lineup and the expectation that there are another 3-4 top tier designs on the way in the next 5 years with nothing nearly as notable coming from B&M.

There's a few ways best can be defined, which makes this question a bit difficult to answer...

If we're talking about who builds the best coasters, it's hard not to say RMC. I've ridden twenty of their rides, all of which score at least an 8/10 for me, and since they entered the scene I haven't experienced a coaster by any other manufacturer that I consider a 10/10 ride. Unfortunately, they really only offer three types of coasters, and much of their best work has been at the cost of sacrificing an existing coaster rather than something created on a blank canvas.

If we're talking about who has been successful in the widest range of ride styles, you've got to go with Intamin. While mostly known for mega coasters, LSM launch coasters, impulse coasters, and accelerator coasters, Intamin has also seen quite a lot of success with their giga coasters, wood coasters, and one-off designs custom built for specific parks. Sure, some of their ideas have not turned out great, but it's hard to think of any other company that has pushed the envelope to the extent Intamin has.

If we're talking about who delivers the highest quality product, it's gotta be B&M. While only three of their models (flying, hyper, and inverted) are typically impressive enough to be in the conversation among top coasters, B&M are masters at providing good to great crowd-pleasing coasters that operate reliably and move the lines. Plus, with the exception of a couple of their stand-ups, it's hard to call any of their rides genuinely bad.

If we're talking about who was most successful with a single type of ride, I'd go with CCI. While not every woodie they built was fantastic, they were the ones who brought the wood coaster back from the brink and refined it into a viable product for modern audiences. Several of their later projects are still in the conversation for the best wood coasters out there even when others have had over two decades to further refine the design.

Lastly, we've got the big wildcard for me, which is Mack Rides. They've only been doing major coasters for about fifteen years and I haven't experienced much of it, but I've heard their newest stuff like Ride to Happiness, Stardust Racers, and Voltron rival the best that Intamin and RMC have created. If they continue to be prominent in the industry, I foresee them being a lot more in the conversation in the coming years, especially with the reputations of B&M and RMC on a downward trajectory.

On a personal level, if you want to know my favorite manufacturers (not necessary who I think is best in the industry), it would go 1. B&M, 2. RMC, 3. Intamin, 4. Vekoma, 5. Gerstlauer.