Arrow-Vekoma Mutations

by krosscoasters

There have been several coasters which have been started by Arrow Dynamics, and have later ended up being finished by Vekoma after Arrow's temporary plunge into the same bankruptcy that hindered their pipeline coaster. These Vekoma's have the standard Arrow scaffold supporting for their lift hills, which may tip off the fact that they could be Arrow's, but ultimately they have been partially worked on by Vekoma's evil headbanging clutches...
The first I will mention is the one that is the most familiar, Ninja. It is located at Six Flags St. Louis in Eureka, Missouri. Ninja was originally built for Expo '86, but was relocated here and later painted black from its original red. It contains a vertical loop, a sidewinder, and a double corkscrew, as well as a helix. It certainly seems like the typical Arrow, doesn't it? Well oddly enough, Vekoma picked up a lot of Arrow's tactics in design, and seem to have done a good job at posing as Arrow, but really the only things that are purely Arrow are the scaffolding and the odd straightaway after the lift leading into the trademark turn. Even the trains are from Arrow. Except for the fact that there is no scaffolding after the MCBR, it seems pretty much all Arrow's work. But at least Six Flags kept good taste in color even when it was repainted from red to black, since our next coaster not only has terrible transitions and awkward maneuvers, but it's color scheme is nothing to be desired to add to the fact that it is yet another half Arrow, half Vekoma mutation...
 
The one that is not so familiar is located in China at Nanhu Amusement Park, which is worse than Ninja, though like Ninja this coaster features a vertical loop, sidewinder and double corkscrew... but not in that order. This coaster is aptly named Crazy Roller Coaster to coincide with its unique and bizarre layout. And uncommon to Arrow coasters, there is a double corkscrew right after the lift and the odd turn leading into it. The only other Arrow coaster to feature the double corkscrew right away is Fantasia Special at Tongdo Fantasia in South Korea. Another odd turn and an out of place bunny hop lead into the sidewinder, which I just assumed was to slow the train down a little so that it would control the speed though the sidewinder... it could just be a random out of place bunny hop, though. The vertical loop is last, and a final helix leads the train to the station. Now I'm quick to judge awkward transitions, and this coaster has plenty of them, from the odd turn into the corkscrews to the bunny hop... it's even painted purple and green for some reason, the iffy color scheme I mentioned earlier. But what can you really expect, I guess, from these Arrow-Vekoma mutations...