Boomerang – Lagoon History Project

Opened: Apr 1977
Location: North Midway
Manufactured By: Gebrüder Ihle – Bruchsal, Germany
Number Of Cars: 40
Ride Capacity: 80 (2 per car)

Boomerang in 2005 — Boomerang in fall 2005. Photo: B. Miskin

For several decades, the Dodgem Hall had been located near the center of the Midway. It became the Auto Skooter from 1966 until 1977 when it was replaced by the Scamper bumper cars for kids. That same year, a new regular-sized bumper car ride, Boomerang, opened in a new building on the North Midway where Zugspitz had been since 1973.

Each car is identical except for the color and the “Ford”, “Opel” and “Benz” names on the front of the car. When it opened, this was the northern edge of the park with Lagoon Stadium on the other side.

Little has changed on this ride since then. There used to be a lattice gate that echoed the style of the building. It stood a few feet away from the southeast corner, perhaps to mark the entrance to the queue before it was removed in the late 1980s or ’90s. Before the current color scheme, the exterior was painted dark and light brown. There were detailed paintings of antique cars across the top with the year, make and model of each listed below them. These were painted over in the early ’00s. The interior walls were repainted in the ’90s with a large Lagoon and Pioneer Village logo and again around 2001. New pictures of antique cars were added in 2003 and the sign on the front above the entrance was replaced a few years later. In July 2015, the sign was updated a third time.