For a long time I thought only 1 existed but now with the reveal of the existence of a German model I’m convinced their were at least 2 of these made. The first model was used for the 1979 AMOA show and was equipped with a crude prototype speech card set. [That] American model was mostly destroyed last time I saw it and I doubt it could have been salvaged. With the discovery of this German model I am convinced there was a second fiberglass cabinet exported to Germany. This makes total sense as the light weight of the fiberglass would have greatly reduced shipping expenses. It also makes sense with the tooling development required to make the cabinet that more than one sample would have been created. From the photographs submitted it is apparent that the German cabinet did not have the speech components.

Being a special prototype, the cost to produce must have been astronomical at the time. There were two chief drivers that led to the development of the fiberglass cabinet, weight and material. The fiberglass was considerably lighter than the plywood used to make cabinets. A significant reduction would have greatly reduced export costs. Availability of wood products was also a concern. In the late 1970s there was an anticipated lumber shortage that would have driven up costs of plywood and similar byproducts dramatically. Bally was actively working with its cabinet supplier, Lync Smith, to manufacture cabinets and playfields from alternative materials. As noted in past stories, composite materials had already been tested for playfields. In the end, fiberglass and composites proved to be to costly and impractical. Besides the tooling cost to produce, fiberglass composites could not be readily modified. If a certain game required a modification to accommodate a special feature that would have required an expensive tool revision, whereas plywood could be cut and altered rather easily. Another factor, the reduced weight of the cabinet affected the play and feel of the game. We had to add sandbags to the show game to get the right ‘feel’ when playing. Another fail was the fiberglass was simply not strong enough to handle the harsh use and abuse of a coin game. It easily cracked and split and proved to be unsuitable for commercial use.