One of the Biggest Amusement Park Flops Ever Happened in Flint

Flint – The biggest flop in Michigan history was an indoor amusement park in downtown Flint that cost $70 million to build, attracted almost no visitors, and closed after just six months.

It was called Six Flags AutoWorld—an indoor theme park dedicated entirely to the auto industry—and it was supposed to revitalize downtown Flint. Instead, it became a national punch line.

More than 40 years later, people are still laughing.

Or maybe crying a little. After all, more than half of the money it took to build AutoWorld came from taxpayers, so maybe it wasn’t all that funny. What it was, though, was a monumental disaster. It was a bad idea at a bad time that was executed horribly.

Take a seat, Matt Millen, Joey Harrington, and the Ford Motor Company’s Edsel car. The biggest flop in Michigan history was Flint’s AutoWorld, so sit back and enjoy the sad and glorious tale.

AutoWorld opened on the Fourth of July in 1984, located on a 22-acre parcel of land on the north banks of the Flint River. It was located next to the IMA Auditorium, an iconic Flint landmark.

AutoWorld had been in the planning stages for years, but it all came together in the early 1980s, backed by the C.S. Mott Foundation and a host of local business and political leaders.

The thinking was that Flint—the birthplace of both General Motors and the United Auto Workers—would be the natural home for an amusement park dedicated to the auto industry. By the time AutoWorld opened in 1984, the national economy and the auto industry were both in horrible shape, but there were great hopes that this new indoor amusement park would turn things around in Flint.

The $70 million it took to build this disaster came from a variety of sources. The C.S. Mott Foundation kicked in $11 million, $4 million came from local donors, $9 million came from an investment firm, and General Motors ponied up $1 million. State and federal taxpayer funds accounted for $36.5 million.

The Six Flags amusement park company took over the management of AutoWorld, and more than 10,000 people were on hand for the grand opening on the Fourth of July.

Among them was Gov. James Blanchard who said, “I believe AutoWorld will become the gateway to an expanded tourism industry in this state. People will look back and call Flint the comeback city of the United States.”

Excuse me, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

None of that happened, of course. Sorry, governor. What did happen was that about 130,000 people showed up the first month, and then it fell to about 80,000 the next month, and then it fell way, way down after that. There were reports that if you went there on a weekday afternoon in the fall of 1984, you’d have the place to yourself. AutoWorld was hoping to lure about 1 million visitors a year, but they were barely drawing a hundred people a day.

What did those people see? What was a visit to AutoWorld actually like?

Well, I’m in a unique position to say, because I was one of the handful of people who actually visited AutoWorld. In the summer of 1984, I was a cub reporter at the Livingston County Press in Howell, and my editor sent me to Flint to do a story on it.

I was not impressed.

“Upon entering AutoWorld, one of the first things you see is a three-story model of a V-8 engine—working in slow motion so you can see how an engine works,” I wrote.

And right now, you’re thinking, “Wow! That’s the kind of pulse-stopping excitement my whole family needs to see!” Well, you’re not alone. As I recall, and as I wrote at the time, AutoWorld was really, really lame. There were some exhibits showing you how a car is made, some exhibits showing you what cars used to look like, and a movie about cars they showed on a big IMAX screen.

There were only two rides, a merry-go-round and some bumper cars. There were a couple exhibits where you’d climb aboard a slow-moving vehicle and it would take you through a historical display (sort of an ultra-lame version of Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride).

It was barely just OK, and it certainly wasn’t the type of place that kids would be begging mom and dad to take them back to again and again and again. It cost $8.95 to visit (about $28 today), and it definitely wasn’t worth it.

Ticket sales began to plummet, and after just six months, AutoWorld closed up shop. There were a few half-hearted efforts in the years that followed to only open it on weekends, but that was a flop, too.

What went wrong with AutoWorld? Almost everything. As it turned out, nobody wanted to go to Flint to pay good money to walk around an indoor amusement park that wasn’t amusing.

In February of 1997, less than 13 years after it opened to such great fanfare, AutoWorld was imploded. A crowd of 10,000 people gathered in the freezing weather to watch it blow up, and nobody was too sad to see it go. The land was donated to the University of Michigan-Flint, and there’s a beautiful healthcare facility on the site today.

There’s nothing left of AutoWorld, and in fact, the only remnants can be found just across the river at the Genesee Historical Collections Center, located on the second floor of the Frances Willson Thompson Library on the U-M Flint campus. They have a few boxes of souvenir items from AutoWorld, including some colorful cups and buttons, a pennant, some purses, and a porcelain bell. They’re much cooler than the actual park was.

If you’re so inclined, you can also go on eBay and find some old AutoWorld swag. It’s not cheap; one of the buttons is selling for $100. Makes me wish I had saved some of the crap I bought back in 1984.

Everything else is gone, though. All the lame rides and lame exhibits and everything else. I’m guessing that three-story V-8 engine ended up in a dumpster somewhere, too.

Rest in peace, AutoWorld. We hardly knew ye.