During the early Marriott years, Great America had a sponsorship arrangement with AMC (that's the now defunct American Motors Company for you youngsters). I expect the AMC sponsorship developed because AMC had a manufacturing plant in nearby Kenosha, WI. AMC also made JEEP vehicles before Chrysler bought JEEP when AMC ceased operations. AMC sponsored the Grand Music Hall. I don't know what was really meant by sponsorship...I expect Great America got some cash or cars from AMC.
What I do know is Great America used all AMC & JEEP vehicles. In fact, they used to get brand new vehicles every season. All with big GREAT AMERICA logos on the doors.
In 1976, I think they had Great America Blue Jeep pickups and Fire Engine Red AMC Pacers (the funny looking Wayne's World car). In 1977, they had Fire Engine Red Jeep pickups and Great America Blue AMC Pacers. The park owned many vehicles during the first several years. I remember coming into the employee parking lot in 1977 right behind a full truck load of new Pacers and then in a corner of the parking lot were all the old (1 year old) Pacers waiting to be exchanged. All the marketing, public relations, & group sales reps who had to visit off-property client accounts all received brand new park-owned vehicles every year...pretty nice job perk!!! The Parking Lot crew alone also had two Jeep pickup trucks and also had two or three gas powered Cushmans (industrial strength golf carts that could reach 50 mph if you removed the limiter...yeah it happened). The other thing I remember is that the cars were always so clean & shiny...they must have been washed nearly every day.
After 1978, the park started keeping the vehicles for a few years and didn't purchase as many as in the past.
Remembering the Great America Blue AMC Pacers?
Remembering the Great America Blue AMC Pacers?
"...and enjoy the rest of your day here at Marriott's GRRRREAT America"
This continued into the Six Flags days as well. Probably still happens today. When I was a sales rep, we all had Plymouth Breezes. Plymouth was the park's sponsor (I think they sponsored the Music Hall that year (1998-99) but I can't be sure.) The Breezes replaced Chevy Corsicas, since the park's sponsor prior to Plymouth was Chevrolet. I remember they used to play the "Heartbeat of America" jingle in the Pictorium before every show in the mid-80s and everyone would clap and sing along. It was a pretty popular song as I recall.
Rick Aiello
SFGAm Employee 1988-1999
SFGAm Employee 1988-1999
- jonrev
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Plymouth sponsored the Pictorium and the Space Shuttle America/Sky Trek Tower area in 1997.
Chrysler LLC currently has a sponsorship with the park, Chrysler, Dodges, and Jeeps are parked by the former DejaVu entrance, outside the Fairgrounds Junction, and sometimes in front of the Southwest Amphitheater.
Chrysler LLC currently has a sponsorship with the park, Chrysler, Dodges, and Jeeps are parked by the former DejaVu entrance, outside the Fairgrounds Junction, and sometimes in front of the Southwest Amphitheater.
Gurnee Ride Op - 2007