Bumper boats

Bumper boats are an amusement park ride that uses inner tube shaped watercraft that can be steered by the rider.

Some are driven by electric motors, some by gasoline engines, and some require the rider to propel the craft by pedaling.

The small boats can hold one or two people and have oversized fenders that resemble a large tractor tire inner tube.

Edward A. Morgan, co-founder of amusement park ride manufacturer Arrow Development Company, invented bumper boats in the early 1970s.

The company's fortunes took off when Walt Disney hired it to build many of Disneyland's original rides, such as Snow White's Adventures and Casey Jr.

Streamlined and slick in appearance, the powerboats were designed to give both driver and passenger the feeling of a luxury ride in a lake or lagoon.

Another elaborate and memorable Dodgem boat installation was constructed six years later for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Also, the price of gas went up as well as anti-pollution laws, which were forced on them [park owners] because of the filthy water that was in the lagoons.

An expensive ride to install, outfit, and maintain, especially if a man-made lagoon was required, Dodgem motorboats were not destined to be the stellar performers that the cars proved to be.

[1] Elaborate boat rides would not return to the amusement park scene until Walt Disney and the development of theme parks in the late 1950s and early 1960s began to bring the likes of paddle wheelers and other large craft back to grand-scale manmade waterways.