The famous Revolving Barrel, located in the third room of Trimper’s Haunted House in Ocean City, Maryland, as well as many other Tracy attractions of the time, is original to the ride’s installation in 1964 and has been a core staple of the attraction ever since. At 16 feet long and a diameter of 7.5 feet, the Barrel and all equipment to make it move were manufactured by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company but commissioned and installed by Bill Tracy. The interior of his barrel installations were often covered with fiberglass dimensional rock panels coated with UV paint, and a floor ramp under the left tire made riders feel like they are spiraling out of control. Cleverly, Bill Tracy accompanied his Barrel experience with the revolving back end of a car with two dimensional figures at the tunnel’s end, making it seem like the car in front of the rider was the same predicament.
Interestingly, under the Barrel assembly you can still see the antique hardwood floors which date back to well before 1964 when the Windsor Theater occupied the Trimper building. Also cool to note is that Bill Tracy used mannequin heads from Macy’s department stores to build the faux car back. The busts were often used as hat displays in Macy’s stored, and were commonly manufactured by a company called Greneker. To recap, before Tracy got in to the dark ride business, Macy’s department stores contracted him to design and build window displays and floats for use in their famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. Therefore, he was closely affiliated with them and had access to all types of mannequins which he used in many of his early dark rides.
Check out a few pics and the original assembly details from PTC. The cost of the Revolving Barrel and all lighting back in 1964 from Tracy’s company was $4,000, equivalent to about $33,000 today.
The Bill Tracy Project 