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We had a Watkins Swinger on Childress, red/yellow. Nice ride, easy up and down and short load we pulled behind the power plant.
Diamond State Shows from Decatur Georgia played our Fair from 1975 to 1979 they had a Swinger on their show blue and white with the blue lettering up top the sound system played rock music in 75 76 and 77 it was a sleek and beautiful ride they also brought a Tempest also made by watkins in 76 and 79 .
well with gas prices today who would not want one , pull it as a double, with a tornado
Mo Show Amusements from Marion Il had a kiddie motorcycle ride in their yard that needed some serios work. It was like an old Whip ride with motorcycles pulled around an oblong track by a chain. Whitey said it was a Watkins ride....Is it the same thing?
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Originally posted by Sue

Pope's ride: (was booked in with C&J a few years ago when I took this photo, others are in the same folder)
http://flickr.com/photos...n/set-72157600682098894/ 



Thats it, mine looked a little different but still the same piece.

Thanks for posting those pics, I haven't seen one of those in years...
Pope's ride: (was booked in with C&J a few years ago when I took this photo, others are in the same folder)
http://flickr.com/photos...n/set-72157600682098894/ 
James Roy Pope has one of those rockets. I remember it being featured in Carnival "Do You Remember" one time.
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I had a Watkins Kiddie Rcoket ride. Same action as the satelite, only smaller with rocket tubs. That piece was always right up at the top with our other kiddie rides every single week. One thing that sucked about the piece was the grease, it required more grease than a jeanie. It was an easy piece to maintain & the kids loved it. I have only seen 2 others, 1 was at Coney Island Park in Cincy and the other was for sale a while back on Aplines website.

Does anyone know how many of these were built?
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Originally posted by ringmaster

The Swinger was only sold by GW, under his name. A Swinger turnded over, I don't know the details, but it eventually put Watkins out of bussiness. The ride was relatively inexpensive, easy to set up, and could be pulled double. It was seen as a modern interpritation of the classic Smith & Smith Chairoplane. All the GW rides, the Swinger, Hustler, Tempest, Rampage and Heartflip ( a folding, valentines thiemed Frolic ) were fast flashy rides souted to small fast moving shows. He made an eight foot wide punk ride that used real mini-bikes. no setup at all. Bob Bolling bough the first ( only ? ) one for Mid-South Shows in 1977. The G on the ride was that the engines on the bikes all ran. It was so loud that the agents couldn't work. After a week it was exchanged for a new Tempest. The first night it was up, inside Egland Air Force Base, I stopped three grade school kids rolling a scooter away with the sweep still attached.



That Motorcycle ride was moved to Burns Park Funland in North Little Rock Ar and worked there for years. Mokey Choate bought the park in 82 and he pulled it out of the park and put it out with his show for about a year or so, then dropped it.... it may be sitting in one of his WQ's.

BTW this park was owned by Grover Wadkins, but only had that ride and a Satalite ride built by him, the rest I assume were trade in's as the Scrabler came in a trailer with "maine" plates
Arnie Vomberg told me that Watkins developed a new ride called the Wild Surf. He sunk a ton of money into it & it bombed out at the trade show which led to the bankrupcy of Watkins rides.
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