When Colossus opened at Thorpe Park on 22 March 2002, it did something no roller coaster had ever done: it turned riders upside down ten times in a single circuit. The Intamin-built machine instantly claimed the world inversion record and held it for over a decade, putting the Surrey park on the international thrill map in the process.
More than twenty years on, Colossus is still spinning riders through its trademark run of heartline rolls above the park’s lake. It remains one of the most-copied layouts in coaster history – and it still sits near the top of our ranking of the roller coasters with the most inversions in the world.
Key Stats
| Height | 98.4 ft (30 m) |
| Speed | 44.7 mph (72 km/h) |
| Length | 2,788.7 ft (850 m) |
| Inversions | 10 |
| Duration | 1:32 |
| Capacity | 1,300 riders per hour |
| Trains | 7 cars per train, 28 riders |
| Manufacturer | Intamin (Multi Inversion Coaster) |
| Designer | Werner Stengel (Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH) |
| Opened | 22 March 2002 |
A World First in 2002
At the turn of the millennium, the inversion arms race had stalled. Dragon Khan at PortAventura had held the record with eight loops since 1995, and nobody had managed to top it. Thorpe Park – then repositioning itself as the UK’s thrill-seeker destination – commissioned Intamin to break the deadlock, and the legendary engineer Werner Stengel laid out a track that crammed ten inversions into 2,789 feet.
Colossus held the world record from 2002 until May 2013, when The Smiler at Alton Towers arrived with a scarcely believable fourteen inversions. Even dethroned, Colossus has never fallen far down the list: only one coaster on Earth has more inversions, and the handful that match its ten are all copies of this exact layout.
The Ride Experience
Colossus wastes no time. After the chain lift climbs to 98 feet, the train drops into a full vertical loop, follows it with a sweeping cobra roll – two inversions in one element – and then rattles through a double corkscrew. That’s five inversions before the mid-course, and the best-known section is still to come.
The finale is what riders remember: a quad heartline roll taken at slow speed along a dead-straight stretch of track, twisting the train through four lazy, disorienting barrel rolls in a row, followed by one final heartline snap toward the brakes. Ninety-two seconds after dispatch, you’ve been upside down ten times.
The Most-Cloned Record Breaker
Intamin catalogued the layout as the Multi Inversion Coaster, and parks around the world ordered it. Revised versions of the same ten-inversion design operate today as Altair at Cinecittà World in Italy, Sik at Flamingo Land in the UK, Crazy Coaster at Loca Joy Holiday Theme Park in China, and Velikolukskiy Myasokombinat-2 at Wonder Island in Russia. The clones stand slightly taller and run cable lifts, but the inversion sequence is pure Colossus.
For Thorpe Park, the ride remains a signature attraction alongside Stealth, Saw – The Ride and Hyperia, and its loops above the lake are still one of the most photographed sights in the park.
FAQ
How many inversions does Colossus at Thorpe Park have?
Colossus has 10 inversions: a vertical loop, a cobra roll, a double corkscrew, a quad heartline roll and a final heartline roll. It was the first roller coaster in the world to reach double digits.
How long did Colossus hold the world inversion record?
Eleven years. Colossus took the record from Dragon Khan (8 inversions) when it opened in March 2002 and held it until The Smiler opened with 14 inversions in May 2013.
How fast and how tall is Colossus?
Colossus reaches 44.7 mph (72 km/h) from a height of 98.4 ft (30 m), covering 2,788.7 ft (850 m) of track in about a minute and a half.
Photo: Stefan Scheer via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)