Long before indoor karting centres like K1 Speed started appearing everywhere, Malibu Grand Prix gave ordinary motorists the chance to pretend they were race car drivers.
Despite the name, Malibu Grand Prix wasn’t an IndyCar race like the Long Beach Grand Prix. It was a chain of entertainment centres built around outdoor miniature race tracks, where customers paid to drive scaled-down, Indy-style race cars. Not lawnmower-powered, these machines looked and felt more like real race cars, could reach around 40 mph, and drivers competed against the clock with electronically recorded lap times. The whole place was dressed up to make people feel like they’d wandered into the Indy 500.
Way back in 1970, serial-entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin (yes, that Bricklin) was the sole US importer for Subaru. The tiny ‘kei-car’ Subaru 360 he imported wasn’t just low-volume, it was a sales disaster! So, Bricklin re-purposed some of the cars by bolting on a sporty fiberglass body, building mini race cars out of them. The concept failed.
Three years later, a big fish from Detroit named John Z. DeLorean (yes, that DeLorean) tried a similar idea with Grand Prix of America locations, this time featuring purpose-built miniature open-wheel cars. The concept was sound, but popularity fizzled out.
Later, entrepreneur Ron Cameron finally figured out the formula. He developed the rugged Virage, a 2/3 scale formula car, added mini-golf, batting cages and turned it into a family fun centre. The first Malibu Grand Prix opened beside Anaheim Stadium in 1975, attracting more than 15,000 customers in its first week. By the 1980s, nearly 50 locations operated around the world.
That included Canada. Malibu Grand Prix operated in Kelowna, British Columbia, from 1985 until 2013, where the Prowse family ran the attraction for 28 years. However, no Malibu Grand Prix location ever made it to Toronto or the GTA.
Malibu Grand Prix had its heyday in the ’70s and ’80s but heavy debt, operating losses and expensive real estate hurt the business badly. Just like IndyCar’s popularity has surged and faded over the decades, changing entertainment tastes ate away at the business, and Malibu Grand Prix was eventually sold in 1995.
Today’s arrive-and-drive karting centres owe Malibu Grand Prix a debt of gratitude. They proved people didn’t necessarily want an amusement park ride. They wanted to be racing drivers. Malibu Grand Prix sold the fantasy that, for a few laps, you were Mario Andretti.
I remember being too young to drive there, and then, when I was finally old enough, balking at the price. Le sigh.
Man… you were so lucky! All we ever had here was concession karts, like the crappy ones at the fair.
I bet you wish you had a time machine NOW don’t you!
Yeah…