Not the Average Ride at Disney World…

Disney World has had a thrill ride with Chevy for the past 13 years.  It was called “Test Track.”  Today, it is still there, just under major renovations.  The “ride” will take guests who come into the exhibit through a three-part interactive experience that will go through the designing, testing, and marketing phases of making a new car.  Chevy and Disney hope to show guests just how hard it can be to start with a blank piece of paper and an idea.

When guests enter, they will be greeted by a good deal of touch screens.  These touch screens are design kiosks.  The guests start with a blank “canvas,” and design their own car from the wheels up.  Users can make decisions about engine size, the vehicle’s shape, and color.  These will all be displayed on the screen.  When they are done, the user will get a card that is encoded with all the necessary information about the car.

The second part of the ride will take users through the testing phase.  As Disney and Chevy said, “this is one place where Disney magic disappears, and industrial magic comes into play”.

GM industrial design manager, Jeffrey Mylenek said, “If you made some compromising design choices, it’ll be reflected in your virtual vehicle’s performance numbers.”  Even though it would be awesome to have the ride behave like their decisions about the car (i.e. big engine + tiny tires = oversteer!), that isn’t in the forseeable future.

The third part of the ride may be the best part – riders can race their cars on a test track, have photos taken of them “sitting” in their creation, or create a commercial that features their car.

The final part of the ride has about a dozen production Chevy products on the display.  It won’t be unheard of to see a real concept car there every so often.  Unfortunately, I’ll have to wait until December 6, 2012 to go on the ride (hint, hint Mom…).

My apologies for the late posting.  Candler was right on time.  I, on the other hand, was not.  Ahem.  My apologies!  Editor Mom.