Iron Gwazi

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay opened Gwazi in 1999 as a dueling wooden coaster from Great Coasters International, its Lion and Tiger tracks racing side by side through six choreographed near-misses. The ride earned a devoted following early on, but Florida's heat and humidity accelerated wear on the wooden structure, and despite a 2009–2011 retracking and new train order, ridership kept declining. The Tiger side closed in 2012, and the park confirmed the Lion side would follow in December 2014 — Gwazi's last train ran on February 1, 2015.

The wooden structure sat dormant for several years while the park weighed replacement options, eventually settling on a full steel conversion. Rocky Mountain Construction, the firm that pioneered the modern steel-hybrid conversion with I-Box track, reprofiled Gwazi's surviving structure into Iron Gwazi, which opened March 11, 2022. The new layout climbs to 206 feet before a 91-degree first drop, reaching 76 mph across 4,075 feet of purple track — Busch Gardens marketed it as the fastest and steepest hybrid coaster in the world and North America's tallest hybrid coaster at launch.

Where Gwazi's identity was built around two competing wooden trains, Iron Gwazi trades the dueling gimmick for pure airtime, stringing together a dozen weightless moments across its Stanleyville hillside. Amusement Today named it Best New Ride of 2022, and it has since ranked among the top five steel coasters in major enthusiast polls.

Iron Gwazi remains Busch Gardens Tampa's marquee thrill coaster, its purple supports visible across much of the park and its RMC pedigree drawing coaster enthusiasts who specifically travel for hybrid-conversion rides.