The History of Magnum XL-200

In 1989 Cedar Point built a roller coaster taller than any that had ever existed. Magnum XL-200 broke the two hundred foot barrier, gave the world a new word for what it was, and set off a building race that lasted twenty years.

Breaking two hundred feet

Designed by Ron Toomer of Arrow Dynamics, Magnum XL-200 rose 205 feet, the first complete roller coaster ever to pass two hundred. Arrow and Cedar Point coined a name for the new category, the hypercoaster, and it stuck. The ride opened holding three world records at once, tallest, fastest, and steepest, and it changed how the park saw itself. As one Cedar Point executive later put it, with Magnum the park started branding itself as a big time roller coaster park. The coaster wars had begun.

Airtime over the lake

Magnum went a different way than the looping coasters of the 1980s. It has no inversions. Instead it is built around steep drops and long stretches of airtime, the floating, out-of-your-seat feeling that comes over the top of each hill. Its most famous moment comes on the return run, when the train appears to dive straight toward Lake Erie before banking away to skim the shoreline. Riders and critics never let go of it. Magnum was voted the number one steel coaster in the world three years running at the end of the 1990s, and it was named a Coaster Landmark by the American Coaster Enthusiasts in 2004.

One thing to know

Magnum's exact height has its own small legend. The original blueprints listed it at 201 feet, but the figure quoted today is 205, because the first drawings did not account for the height of the foundation.

Magnum XL-200 is one chapter in the history of Cedar Point.

Magnum XL-200 at a glance