Quick Facts
Biography
Werner Stengel (born 22 August 1936 in Bochum) is a German roller coaster designer and engineer. Stengel is the founder of Stengel Engineering, also known as Ingenieur Büro Stengel GmbH (or Ingenieur Buero Stengel GmbH).
Born on 22 August 1936 in Bochum, Germany, Stengel first worked on amusement park rides in collaboration with Anton Schwarzkopf in 1963. He established his own company, Stengel Engineering, in 1965. His collaboration with Schwarzkopf was responsible for many innovations in roller coaster design, including in 1976 the first modern looping coaster, Revolution, at Six Flags Magic Mountain. His clothoid loop is now standard on many roller coasters as it produces less intense forces on the human body than a circular vertical loop. In 1976 Stengel and Schwarzkopf established the first horizontal launch "Shuttle Loop". He was also noted as being a pioneer in heartlining, the principle of having the track twist/rotate around the rider's heart line, rather than the track rotating around its own center.
Since Schwarzkopf's retirement, he has maintained his eminent position in the amusement park industry ever since; he has worked on most of the world's record-breaking roller coasters, including Son of Beast, Millennium Force, Bizarro, Top Thrill Dragster, Kingda Ka, Dollywood's Mystery Mine, El Toro, and many others. In the 2004 Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards list of the world's top 50 steel roller coasters, 72% have had direct involvement with Stengel Engineering.
He received an honorary doctorate from Gothenburg University in 2005, for his "inexhaustible creativity in linking physics and design to the experience of the body in roller coasters and other rides." One of the most famous and highly regarded Stengel/Schwarzkopf rides is Lisebergbanan at Liseberg, a park situated in Gothenburg city, Sweden.
He has also built the world's largest portable roller coaster, Olympia Looping.
In 2002, he designed a Roller Coaster Element named after himself: "the Stengel Dive" on Goliath at Walibi Holland.
He is currently semi-retired and working as a consultant in the amusement park ride industry.
Stengel celebrated his 500th roller coaster with the opening of Maverick, located at Cedar Point. The roller coaster no. 600 started to operate in 2012.