Montezooma’s Revenge at Knott’s Berry Farm will reopen to the public for the first time in four years after a $20 million makeover that reimagined the historic roller coaster for a new generation of young riders.
The new Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress will open at noon on Thursday, Aug. 6 at the Buena Park theme park, according to Knott’s officials.
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Knott’s has transformed the 1978 Montezooma’s Revenge into a multi-launch coaster with an Aztec treasure hunter theme and a train designed to look like a mythical stone creature.
The reimagined Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress boasts a new coaster train, launch system, track, supports and backstory. The rethemed station house remains the only original part of the ride.
The new Montezooma coaster train departs from a rethemed station that has been reimagined as an architectural cousin of the Mayan stone temple housing the Jaguar coaster next door. Montezooma riders pass through a fanged-toothed portal with smoke and lighting effects.
The new shuttle coaster starts with a forward launch through the single loop and up the far spike before racing backward down the spike and through the loop again in the opposite direction. The relatively short 35-second ride concludes with a backward race through the station and up a second spike before returning to the station.
The new linear synchronous motor launch system rockets riders forward at 55 mph while electromagnetic fins assist with the braking.
The new ride is capable of forward, backward and random launches, but Knott’s will start with only the traditional forward launch when the ride debuts.
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Netherlands-based ride renovator Kumbak has been working on the Montezooma renovation. Kumbak has previously teamed with European theme parks Efteling, Walibi and Bakken.
Montezooma’s Revenge was originally built by Germany-based roller coaster manufacturer Anton Schwarzkopf based on plans developed by renowned coaster designer Werner Stengel.
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The original Schwarzkopf flywheel-launch coaster featured a single train that traveled forward and backward on an 800-foot-long shuttle track with a 76-foot-tall vertical loop. American Coaster Enthusiasts designated the original Montezooma coaster a historic landmark as the last operating ride of its kind in the United States and the longest standing in its original location.
The classic coaster, affectionately known as Monty by fans and Zoom by Knott’s, has endured a seemingly endless series of stops and starts during the past four years.
Manufacturing delays reverberating from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the slow progress on the makeover of the ride that closed in January 2022.