10 Theme Park Car Rides You Need To Experience

Since 1955, Disneyland’s Autopia has given theme park visitors the chance to take a spin in specially designed vehicles around an enclosed track. It may not be the most thrilling ride throughout all of the Disney parks, admittedly, but it is one of the few attractions that visitors can control themselves.

Disneyland’s original ride has since spawned a few variants. Both Disneyland Paris and Florida’s Magic Kingdom each have their own versions (the latter is dubbed Tomorrowland Speedway). Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland, meanwhile, opened with the attractions, but have since closed them. Tokyo Disneyland’s version was called the Grand Circuit Raceway.

If you head to Canada’s Wonderland in Vaughan, Ontario, Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia, or Kings Island in Mason, Ohio, you can take a ride on the Backlot Stunt Coaster. But it didn’t always carry that namesake. In 2003, the coaster opened as The Italian Job: Stunt Track, and gave riders the chance to jump in Mini Coopers and race through the main chase scene in the movie, which included a helicopter that fired a simulated machine gun, a pyrotechnic display, and water effects.

In 2006, all three rides were renamed to Backlot Stunt Coaster and renovated with new scenes. In 2010, the Mini coaster cars were removed entirely for the more generic coaster cars pictured here. Though it may no longer carry its Italian Job branding, the coaster is still plenty thrilling; it accelerates to 40 miles per hour (64 kilometers per hour) out of the station in just three seconds, and includes a number of steep dips and sharp turns.

The video below will give you an idea at how the coaster looked before the rebranding:

Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, California, has a whole section of the park themed around Pixar’s blockbuster Cars franchise. The highlight of the area is Radiator Springs Racers that takes riders on a high-speed drive through the original film’s small town in the southwest.

In addition to racing against folks beside them in another car, riders get to meet some of the movie’s major characters and check out the scenery, which eagled-eyed enthusiasts might notice rocks that resemble the fins and hood emblems from classic American cars.

The video below doesn’t put the wind in your hair but gives you a great idea of what riders experience.

By far the newest ride on this list, Fast & Furious: Supercharged just opened in late April 2018 at Universal Studios Florida. Riders load into carts where a mix of video, holograms, and live-action props put them into the middle of a high-speed chase featuring some of the franchise’s stars like Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, and more.

If you can’t make it to Orlando, the clip below provides a taste of the automotive action.

Not even the world’s largest automakers can lay claim to having an entire theme park representing their brand. But Ferrari does. Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi opened to visitors in 2010, and spans 21 acres of Ferrari-branded rides exclusively. Some of the attractions include Fiorano GT Challenge, an F430-based roller coaster that gets up to speed of 59 miles per hour (95 kilometers per hour), and Formula Rossa, the world’s fastest roller coaster, which reaches speeds of 150 miles per hour (241 kilometers per hour).

That’s right, Universal is building a real-life Mario Kart in both Orlando and Japan. The former attraction will be part of the new Super Nintendo World park – which will join Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure down the street – and will be a fully immersive, true-to-game experience, say experts. Not a lot of details have been released yet as the parks are just kicking off construction, but expect the Mario Kart ride to be open on the same day as the opening of the new parks.

Fast cars and rock music naturally fit together, so Disney combines them with its Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster at the Hollywood Studios theme park in Orlando.

Riders climb into a car with styling that evokes an early 1960s Cadillac. Each occupant experiences an Aerosmith song that plays from multiple speakers in the headrest and a subwoofer in the seat to really let each person feel the music. The indoor coaster then accelerates folks to 58 mph (93 kph) in 2.8 seconds, and the track travels through a dark world that looks like a 1970s blacklight poster.

For our European readers, there’s also a version of this ride at the Walt Disney Studios Park section of Disneyland Paris, but you need to check it out soon. Earlier this year, the park announced plans to convert it into an Iron Man-themed attraction.

Another Orlando-based attraction, Test Track has been a fixture of Disney’s Epcot park since it was opened in March of 1999. The so-called “slot car” attraction recreates vehicle testing procedures and evaluation methods, everything from handling, to wear and tear, all leading up to a high-speed oval that propels each vehicle to a top speed of 64.9 miles per hour.

The ride’s most recent update came in 2012, and saw Chevrolet added on as a sponsor. The significant makeover replaced the old-school layout with a modern Tron-like design. It also now gives riders the chance to virtually build their own vehicles to see how they stack up on the course. If you can’t make it to Florida, the video below takes you through the ride in its entirety. 

We leave the major theme parks of Florida and California for Cedar Point on the coast of Lake Erie in Sandusky, Ohio, and check out its high-speed, dragster-inspired rollercoaster.

Riders board the car and line up at the timing lights. When the green flashes, vehicle reaches speeds as high as 120 miles per hour (193 kilometers per hour).

As the clip below shows, the ride is rather short with a climb and small roll after the initial burst of acceleration, but there aren’t many other places in the world you can reach triple-digit speeds in the open air without wearing a helmet.