We love Disney. What’s not to love, right? With so many exciting rides, attractions, and shows, we can’t help but be attached to our favorites. When they change, as they almost always do, we can get pretty upset. While we look forward to what Disney is becoming, we miss what Disney used to be.
On Twitter recently, fans shared their sadness over a beloved EPCOT overhaul. No, it’s not Figment. It is Test Track. For you, young whippersnappers too young to have experienced the original, Test Track 2.0 is not what it used to be. When it opened in 1999, it had a storyline. Themed as a testing facility for General Motors automobiles, the ride put you in the driver’s seat as a crash dummy to take a ride in a car being put through its paces on various tests.
If you’re saying to yourself, “That’s what the ride is now! It hasn’t changed,” you’d be right. But also wrong. The original version was themed like an actual testing facility, and you could imagine you were really putting a car through its paces. You felt the heat and the cold from the extreme weather area. You experienced real-life simulations. The only thing that’s the same today is the high-speed simulation, everything else has been “reimagined”
When GM went through a very public bankruptcy, Disney worried this association would harm its brand. The contract wasn’t renewed, and Test Track was overhauled in 2012. When it reopened, it had a brand new sponsor, Chevrolet. The newer version of the ride still takes you through vehicle testing, but the ride is stylized and no longer meant to feel like you are in an actual testing facility. Neon lights and strobe effects replaced the realistic conditions, and the ride centered on digital images.
Recently, many users on Twitter shared their disappointment with the ride’s current iteration. It all started when one user asked if anyone remembered the original:
https://twitter.com/KevinSparrow8/status/1656362103983206420?s=19
Fans came out sharing their memories:
User Margaret Riley misses the hot and cold rooms that we described above. We do too Margaret!
Jake Coasters is one of many who say they preferred the original version to Test Track 2.0.
Tyler Dean McDowell broke our hearts because we feel the exact same way. We get so excited to ride and then remember that it has changed.
Martin T. Pierro took it all the way back to World of Motion. This was the opening day attraction at EPCOT that was in place before Test Tract replaced it. “It’s fun to be free..”
Will Weppler barely remembers the ride. The “surprise” test scared us all but that’s part of why we loved it so!
As someone who has experienced both, it is primarily up to personal interpretation, which is better, but this author tends to side with the folks on Twitter. Test Track opened when I was a freshman in high school, and I miss the old version very much. This new version lacks a certain flair the original had. You don’t sink into a story anymore. You simply go through the motions, so to speak, waiting on the good part.