This is an original Battle Action Tank from Action Park, the notorious theme park in New Jersey. It has an air-powered cannon that fires tennis balls, operated from the single seat in the cockpit.
10 of these tanks were made in total, they were all equipped with targets around the outside, and when a target was hit on the outside of a tank, that tank would be disabled for 15 seconds. The example you see here has been restored, it’s in full working condition, and it’s now being offered for sale.
Above Video: This is the short documentary “The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever” by Matt Robertson, it’s all about Action Park and it includes interviews with people who went to the park as kids when it was still operating.
History Speedrun: The Infamous Story Of Action Park
Action Park operated out of Vernon Township in New Jersey, from 1978 through to 1996. In its early years, the insurance certificates it filed with state ride regulators came from a sham Cayman Islands company its owner had set up. No aboveboard insurance company would cover the theme park, so a workaround was found. It was a pattern of questionable behavior that would come to define almost every aspect of the park’s operations.
Eugene “Gene” Mulvihill, a securities broker who controlled the Vernon Valley/Great Gorge ski area, opened the 2,700 foot Alpine Slide down one of its trails in 1976. Alpine Slide sleds ran down concrete and fiberglass chutes, with a single lever controlling their brakes. The idea, as Mulvihill’s son Andy later said, was to give guests a skier’s control over their own speed.
Reports for 1984 and 1985 listed 14 fractures and 26 head injuries on the slide. That might sound bad, but compared to what was to come later it seemed like merely a blip on the radar.
Mulvihill formally opened Action Park on July the 4th, 1978. It had a slew of attractions, and more were added regularly. The Tidal Wave Pool opened in 1981, it was chaos, and lifeguards logged up to 30 rescues a day.
The Cannonball Loop, an enclosed tube slide with a vertical loop, was built in 1983, and employees were offered $100 to test it. In 1985 the state’s ride-safety advisory board shut it down due to the number of injuries it had caused.
The 2018 film Action Point starring Johnny Knoxville and Chris Pontius was directly inspired by Action Park and its wildly dangerous rides famous for injuring and even killing people. It must have seemed like a story perfectly suited to Knoxville and the Jackass crew. Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Motorworld was all about motorized rides, the Super Go-Karts had 20 mph governors, and staff wedged tennis balls into the governors so the karts could reach 50+ mph. Licensed drivers aged 17 and up could pay extra for a Lola T506-series car, a miniature single-seater Lola race car designed for American kart tracks.
The original T506 had a tubular spaceframe, wishbone suspension, drum brakes, rack-and-pinion steering and a 28 bhp Sachs single-rotor Wankel rotary engine. Lola built 41 T506s and 80 T506Bs between 1977 and 1984. The park also ran speedboats at up to 40 mph on a snake-infested pond. Because by that point, why not.
Five deaths were recorded at the park, and a sixth was directly attributed to it. A young man was thrown from the Alpine Slide in 1980 and struck a rock. In 1982 a 15 year old drowned in the wave pool, and about a week later a 27 year old died on the Kayak Experience, the coroner blamed an electric shock from exposed underwater wiring.
In 1984 a 20 year old drowned in the cliff-diving pool, and a visitor’s fatal heart attack was also believed to have been triggered by the cold spring water beneath the Tarzan Swing. An 18 year old drowned in the wave pool in 1987.
On November the 8th, 1984, Mulvihill pleaded guilty to six counts tied to the insurer, London & World Assurance, including doing business as an unauthorized insurance company. He received suspended sentences, probation and $45,000 USD in fines, and an SEC judge later barred him from the brokerage business.
Great American Recreation, Mulvihill’s company, went bankrupt in 1996 owing $48 million USD. Action Park didn’t reopen in 1997, and Intrawest relaunched the water park section as Mountain Creek in 1998. Mulvihill’s group bought it back in 2010, and he died in 2012. His son Andy revived the Action Park name for the 2014 and 2015 seasons.
The 2018 film Action Point starring Johnny Knoxville and Chris Pontius was directly inspired by Action Park and its wildly dangerous rides famous for injuring and even killing people. It must have seemed like a story perfectly suited to Knoxville and the Jackass crew.
Above Video: This is the official theatrical trailer for the documentary “Class Action Park” by Seth Porges and Chris Charles Scott III which premiered on HBO Max in 2020.
The documentary Class Action Park, directed by Seth Porges and Chris Charles Scott III, premiered on HBO Max on August the 27th, 2020. It brought the incredible story of Action Park to a global audience – we added the official trailer above and the full documentary is worth watching if you can find the time.
The 1981 Action Park Battle Action Tank Shown Here
This is a surviving Action Park “Battle Action Tank” from 1981, it’s one of 10 miniature motorized tanks built for the Battle Action Tanks attraction at Motorworld, part of the infamous Action Park in Vernon, New Jersey.
The tanks were reportedly designed by park employee Mike Kraemer and built by fellow employee Bob Garby, with this example said to be the sixth made. The original attraction had ten tanks operating inside a fenced enclosure, each equipped with an air-powered cannon that fired tennis balls at targets mounted on the other tanks.
A successful hit would immobilize the opposing tank for 15 seconds. Spectators outside the enclosure could also fire tennis balls at the vehicles using stationary tennis ball cannons. As you can imagine, it was absolute mayhem. I only wish I could have had a go.
In 2022, Robert Gleason of Butler, New Jersey, began restoring this tank, stripping and repainting its chassis and fiberglass body, refurbing its sliding steel-mesh protective cage, replacing hydraulic lines and bumper mounts, and fabricating new steel tubs and plastic side panels painted to resemble tank tracks.
The Battle Action attraction had ten tanks operating inside a fenced enclosure, each equipped with an air-powered cannon that fired tennis balls at targets mounted on the other tanks. A successful hit would disable the opponents tank for 15 seconds.
The selling dealer bought it in May of this year and carried out further mechanical work, including installing a new 277cc Kohler Command Pro CH395 four-stroke engine producing 9.5 bhp, upgrading the electrical wiring, and fitting a new fuel tank, battery, and Turf Rider tires.
It’s now being offered for sale without reserve in Seekonk, Massachusetts and you can visit the listing here on Bring a Trailer if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer + Paramount Pictures
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
