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ThunderVolt is a steel launched roller coaster located at Playland in Vancouver, British Columbia. It originally operated as Senzafiato at Italy defunct Miragica theme park before being refurbished by Zamperla and constructed at Playland, where it opened as Canada's fastest launch coaster in July 2024.
Senzafiato (Italian for "Breathless") was the largest of two roller coasters located at Miragica; it was originally designed by Intamin and initially was assembled in May 2008. It was one of their final coasters to use a complex hydraulic launch system before the company fully moved towards linear motor technology. After the park's closure, Senzafiato was placed under the ownership of the leasing company and later sold to Zamperla for restoration; it was removed from the property in early 2022.
ThunderVolt's track and supports first began arriving at Playland in January 2023, with concrete footers being poured over the summer and assembly taking place during the Fall. Additionally in June, the Pacific National Exhibition was awarded $10-million Canadian dollar in expansion funding from the Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan), some of would be directed towards the coaster's construction.
Despite this, ThunderVolt's development faced various hurdles. In early 2023 it became apparent that the attraction's footprint conflicted with construction of the new PNE Amphitheatre. The decision was eventually made to shift the coaster approximately northeast, necessitating additional piling work and increasing the budget by $1.5 million. A PNE press release later claimed that ThunderVolt's final budget had been raised further to $16 million. In May 2024, two months before ThunderVolt's targeted debut, Top Thrill 2 at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio - a similar coaster refurbishment project that Zamperla had been working on concurrently - closed indefinitely for modifications after just days of operation. Despite questions raised concerning the hardware, ThunderVolt remained insulated and later officially opened to the public on July 6, 2024.
While at Miragica, Senzafiato – dubbed an Accelerator Coaster by Intamin – operated with a hydraulic launch system and single 3-car, 12-passenger train. When refurbishing the attraction, Zamperla swapped out the hardware with Linear Synchronous Motors (LSM's) for the new launch and their Lightning vehicle model for the train. The latter retains the original's capacity and features an aluminium-milled chassis without welds. During the refurbishment the coaster's red track and blue supports were repainted yellow and pink, respectively. In addition, an illuminated tunnel was built around the launch track.
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