Philly's Drive-In Theater Park

Philly's Drive-In Theater Park was a combination and  located in Bedminster, Pennsylvania. It was operated from 1977 to 1994. It was billed as "The world's first drive-in theater with an amusement park". The park closes for the day before intermission starts.

Early years
In the mid-1970s, a Philadelphia businessman named Andy Caddel came up with the idea behind Philly's Drive-In Theater Park after a visit to Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and another visit to a drive-in theater later that evening. Construction on the park began in 1975. After construction on the park was completed, construction of the theater began in 1976. And after those were completed, the owner was now ready to open that theater/park to the public.

In the spring of 1977, the park/drive-in theater opened to the public.

When it opened it featured three roller coasters:


 * The Drive-In Coaster, an Allan Herschell Little Dipper coaster is located around a drive-in movie screen,
 * The Drive-In Corkscrew, an Arrow Dynamics Corkscrew coaster, and
 * Mad Mouse, an Edwards & Robinson Large-Sized Wild Mouse coaster model.

In 1978, The Sonic Loop opened.

Later years and closure
At the start of the 1990s, the numbers of park visitors begin to decline.

in 1991, Kennywood opened Steel Phantom (an upgraded version of the Drive-In Corkscrew) that would draw visitors away from Philly's Drive-In Theater Park. The same year, Hersheypark opened Sidewinder (an upgraded version of the Sonic Loop) that would also draw visitors away from the park. In 1992, the park attempted to get visitors to come back was adding more rides, reprinting, renaming some rides, replacing a new drive-in theater sign, and even adding an arcade building named Philly's Arcade, it was a success, but it didn't help save the theater and the park.

Finally, in late 1994, the entire amusement park shut down and the rides were sold. The theater continued to operate after that. But in late 1995, the theater closed for good and was left abandoned for a few years. Several locals came up with the idea of turning the abandoned movie theater into a Philly's Drive-In Theater Park-themed museum, with the movie theater screen being used as the main entrance of the museum. However, the plan failed and it was demolished in early 1998.

Gallery
see Philly's Drive-In Theater Park/Gallery

Incidents
TBA

Trivia

 * The original logo of Philly's Drive-In Theater Park was still on the back of the drive-in movie theater screen after the logo was changed in 1992.

Legacy
The concept of an amusement park located behind the Drive-In movie theater was later revived in 2004 when Amusement Park Drive-In opened. It operated until June 7. 2022 when the all-wooden movie theater screen was destroyed by a fire.