Restoration of vintage Coulson Buzzbomb fairground ride

The 1950’s Coulson Buzzbomb ‘Rocket Ride’ returns!

Well, my Grandad’s old Buzzbomb has found its way home.

A little bit of history on the ride:
In the 1950’s, Coulson’s were making several rides, with these Buzzbomb’s being one of them. Below, you’ll see an original advert for one!
These early models were made from fuel tanks leftover from WW2, taken off a p51d Mustang.
If you look inside the car’s, you can actually see the original hole for fueling them.

*An original advert from F.W.Coulson. We are also restoring a ‘minor mobile’ for a customer!*

This exact ride was owned by my grandfather in the mid 70’s, until he sold it as part of a deal for his second ‘Autodrome’ (I’ll do another post on them sometime I’m sure). My dad often talks about how heavy the Rockets seemed at the time, remembering that they used to have a handle with a hook attached which helped pull the cars to the front of the truck when packing away.

It made its way back to my Grandad’s twin brother Joe, who then sold it to John Hatwell where it stayed until we bought it back.
Mr Hatwell is a very well respected signwriter, and gave the Buzzbomb the fantastic livery that it still has today.

*Sporting John Hatwells artwork under his ownership.*

*Bob Rose and family, with the buzzbomb in the 70s. Note the tin step ladder!*

Its felt like a long road getting this back. I first learned that it may be for sale back in 2020. Now I’m not sure how clued up on current events everyone is, but that was not a very good year for the industry and definitely wasn’t a great year to go visit someone to look at a vintage ride!

After waiting for the various lockdowns to end, the projects back in the workshop had built up and time was in short supply, so i still didnt manage to drive the 2 1/2 hours to go and look at it. Then after many more setbacks, in October of 2022, I finally managed to get over there and see what state it was in!

*How the Buzzbomb stands today… theres those steps again!*

Overall, it’s fared well after a while in storage. it’s a shame to have to sand that paint off, but it’ll have to be done to properly assess and repair the rockets. I’ll make sure to trace a pattern off of them to use later. The first job, however is to build the stillage to store/transport the ride, so that it can be protected while it waits for further restoration work.

This will be an ongoing restoration as we currently have a workshop full of jobs on the go, as well as bookings for our other equipment, but I will update here as we progress!

Thanks for reading,
Marshall.

‘The Rocket Ride’

The 1950’s Coulson Buzzbomb ‘Rocket Ride’ returns!