Zamperla Brand Guidelines: The Circus Family That Built a Ride Maker in Altavilla Vicentina

A pastry cook, a horsewoman and a travelling cinema.

Antonio Zamperla S.p.A. dates itself to 1966, the year Antonio Zamperla founded it at Altavilla Vicentina, a town in the province of Vicenza in Italy’s Veneto region. The family’s trade is much older.

The story the family tells starts in the nineteenth century, when Angelo Zamperla, a pastry cook in Ferrara, followed a circus horsewoman and took up circus life. His son Umberto turned to a travelling cinema, carrying a projector from fair to fair; Alberto Zamperla told la Repubblica in 2016 that it was a Pathé Frères machine, while Forbes Italia said in 2021 that it came from the Lumière brothers. Both publications also repeat the account that Federico Fellini’s Zampanò, the showman in La strada, took his name from two circus families, the Zamperlas and the Saltanòs.

Antonio, Umberto’s son, began by building rides for his own use. In the early 1960s, Alberto told la Repubblica, he made them himself and took them on the road, notably a bumper car ride for small children and a plane carousel, until other showmen asked to buy them. Forbes Italia describes the same idea as adapting adult attractions for children. A 2026 reportage by Tech Princess, from a factory visit, gives a mobile go-kart track as the piece that first drew requests for copies. Coin-operated strength-testing games followed, and those sold in the tens of thousands across Europe, Alberto said.

Expansion came through Antonio’s son Alberto Zamperla, who founded a North American subsidiary in Montreal in 1976 that later moved to New Jersey, according to Italian Wikipedia. The company’s timeline gives the same year, along with a 2,000-square-metre plant and 50 staff by 1979. Pat Reithoffer of Reithoffer Shows was among the first American customers, Italian Wikipedia says, citing Amusement Today.

Disney, Coney Island and the world trade.

The turning point was Disney. In 1988 Zamperla bid for attractions at the park then called Euro Disney, near Paris. Alberto Zamperla told la Repubblica it won seven of twelve; Forbes Italia, quoting his son Antonio, says eight of thirteen; the company’s timeline says seven of twelve and dates the delivery to 1992. The two press accounts also differ on the link with Disney’s Dumbo ride in California: la Repubblica says Zamperla engineers solved a fault from the drawings while working on the Paris Dumbo, and Forbes Italia says a fibreglass repair came first and led to the tender.

Bigger clients followed. The company names Disney, Universal Studios, Six Flags, Warner Bros and Merlin Entertainment, and its range now runs from family rides and kiddie rides to thrill rides, water rides and roller coasters. Almost all of it goes abroad: la Repubblica reported 97 per cent of products sold outside Italy in 2016, and Forbes Italia more than 95 per cent of sales in 2021. Forbes Italia also reported rides sent to Iraq and North Korea, and Il Sole 24 Ore lists North Korea, China, Mexico and Thailand among the countries with Zamperla installations.

Zamperla has also run parks. Its timeline lists Victorian Gardens at Central Park, New York, in 2003. It is known above all for Luna Park at Coney Island: Antonio Zamperla Jr. told Forbes Italia that it won the city’s tender in January 2010 and had a hundred days to refurbish the site, install rides and open by the end of May. The company now says it operates the park in partnership with CAI, and la Repubblica reported that new rides are often first opened to the public there. At home it took part in Minitalia Leolandia from 2007 to 2010, and in late 2019 it opened Luna Farm at Fico Eataly World in Bologna, which Il Sole 24 Ore called its first Italian park, an indoor site where seven of the 15 attractions were designed to be accessible to children with particular needs.

Antonio Zamperla became the first Italian in the IAAPA Hall of Fame in 2005, la Repubblica and Il Sole 24 Ore reported, and the company says Alberto joined him in 2019. Its awards page lists IAAPA Brass Ring Awards for rides including Rocking Tug in 2002, Disk’o in 2006 and Big Wavez in 2022.

Steel, renderings and trade stands.

Ride makers sell to parks rather than to the public. The park usually names and themes the ride, and the maker’s own identity sits further back, in the engineering. That shapes how these firms present themselves.

The factory floor is usually the first picture. Long curved lengths of steel track, jigs, welded supports and finished trains waiting for shipment do the work of a product shot, because a coaster cannot be photographed whole until it stands in a park. Alongside them come CAD renderings, which let a maker show a layout, a station or a new train to a buyer long before any steel is cut.

The trade stand is the second stage. IAAPA Expo, the industry’s large annual show, is where makers put full-size vehicles and scale models in front of park owners, announce new models and compete for the show’s product awards. Company websites tend to follow the same logic, leading with reference lists and record claims rather than with a founder’s story.

The third stage belongs to the ride itself. On-ride films, shot from the front seat and released by parks and makers, are a common way to show a layout to people who will never see the drawings, and a park’s opening day puts the finished work in public view. This guide sets out who founded each firm, who owns it and where its work is made, and it attributes every claim to its source. Colours and typefaces here are our own interpretation, not the companies’ standards.

Steel frames and a fibreglass dress.

Zamperla’s production remains centred on Altavilla Vicentina. In 2016 la Repubblica reported that everything is designed and built in the offices and sheds there, with parts such as steelwork, fibreglass and electrical systems also coming from other firms for assembly. Tech Princess described steel frames fitted with fibreglass shells, moulded from foam models and painted by hand; it was told that fibreglass is the ride’s “dress.” Counts of sites vary. The company says it has three production sites and six branches; Forbes Italia reported four plants in 2021. ANSA, as carried by Soldionline in September 2026, gave more than 450 staff, about 300 of them in Italy, and more than 7,000 installed rides, while Forbes Italia had put the total at around 9,000.

The company calls itself a family-run business. Antonio Zamperla Jr. became chief executive in January 2021, Forbes Italia reported, and ANSA called him president and CEO in September 2026, when the company marked its sixtieth year at Altavilla and showed a new ride, Hypnosiz, developed from its Nebulaz. Il Sole 24 Ore reported that a dedicated Roller Coaster division began work on 1 January 2020.

In 2023 Zamperla was hired to redesign Top Thrill 2 at Cedar Point, a ride first built by Intamin, English Wikipedia says. It opened on 4 May 2024 and shut about a week later. A park spokesperson told WDIV Local 4 in 2025 that the manufacturer had decided it wanted to modify the vehicles; it returned on 3 May 2025.

A separate case ended in court. On 14 June 2024 the AtmosFEAR ride at Oaks Park in Portland, Oregon, stopped with 30 riders held upside down for nearly half an hour, KPTV reported. Oaks Park sued Zamperla that September, according to KATU, arguing that it bore responsibility. In August 2026 a jury voted 10–2 that the park and the ride’s manufacturer must pay damages to two teenagers, KPTV reported.

The website calls Zamperla “the amusement company since 1966,” and many recent names carry a Z, among them Nebulaz, Big Wavez, Wingz and Power Zurge, with ZCare and ZSpare for after-sales service. Antonio Zamperla told Tech Princess the right word for what it makes is giostre, or rides, rather than attractions.

For a design guide, Zamperla shows how a family trade can become a house style, down to one letter of its name. Compare Bolliger & Mabillard, a Swiss firm that sells engineering under two surnames, and Cedar Point, the Ohio park whose Top Thrill 2 it redesigned. For this guide we use a big-top red, a bulb gold and a canvas cream with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Zamperla’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.