Test Track 3.0 Review: Good, Bad & Ugly

Test Track 3.0 is the third iteration of the thrill ride in the transportation pavilion in EPCOT. This Walt Disney World review shares photos and our thoughts about the reimagined attraction, how it stacks up to its predecessors, strengths and weaknesses, and whether this lives up to our somewhat high expectations for the E-Ticket.

Test Track 3.0 was announced during Destination D23 two years ago. Imagineers along with teams from corporate alliance partner Chevrolet/General Motors stated they’d reach back into history for inspiration from the original World of Motion, and bring that spirit of optimism to the next iteration of Test Track. The reimagined ride was to push innovation forward and celebrate humanity’s enduring drive on the thrilling road to a brighter tomorrow.

One of the biggest changes with this iteration of Test Track is the removal of the massive canopy outside. This sight is likely a joy to behold for fellow EPCOT Center old-timers, as this pavilion didn’t have the canopy during its World of Motion days. Ditching that permanent canopy that looked temporary and industrial was a huge win.

It served a practical purpose (shade and cover from the rain), but was also an eyesore. We all just collectively got used to it as it had been there for so long. It’s a similar story throughout the former Future World, with this being the latest and perhaps best step in the decluttering.

Now let’s head inside and take a look at how Imagineers and General Motors redesigned Test Track 3.0!

Test Track 3.0 Queue

The queue of Test Track 3.0 features six exhibits, and each room celebrate the vehicles and designers that push the envelope. For the most part, the queue contains concept cars and displays indicating they year they were designed. One thing I find interesting about concept cars is that, at least to me, they always look futuristic.

I was recently flipping through an original EPCOT Center pamphlet from the early 1980s that showcased General Motors (or, I guess, ‘general motors’ now?) concept cars from way back then. Even those looked straight out of the future. Why don’t those ever go into production?! Anyway, similar story here, even with the cars that are from over 20 years ago.

Each iteration of Test Track has streamlined and decluttered the queue. The last one got rid of the industrial stuff, making it more futuristic and less like a present day test facility, dummies and all. This version takes another step in that direction, with more educational displays about the design process. The queue is also brighter and airier, thanks it part to windows allowing natural light to enter.

The biggest change is the removal of the Chevrolet Design Studio. Many fans have said “good riddance” to this and, to be sure, I mostly bypassed it on solo visits to EPCOT. Customizing your own car had no impact on the ride experience, and how the SIMcar fit within Test Track was confusing from a ‘story’ perspective.

But you know what? It was still fun. Sarah and I always made a point of trying to outdo one another with absurd designs that would’ve made Homer Simpson proud. And then we’d “race” those SIMcars to see which would outperform the other. It didn’t always work, but it was good, silly fun. And amusing to see our monstrosities atop the leaderboards (okay, usually at the bottom of the board).

The SIMcar stuff definitely got old for a lot of Walt Disney World diehards, but it seemed to me that a lot of casual guests enjoyed it. Kids certainly seemed to love it, as did immature adults like us. At least, when it worked. Even though I didn’t always customize a SIMcar, I’ll miss having the option to do so.

The third iteration of Test Track has no pre-show or customization. That leaves more room for ‘edutainment,’ which is a good thing in theory as it fits with the spirit of EPCOT Center. Once that’s done, let’s sit down and buckle up for the ride…

Test Track New Vehicles

As part of the reimagining, Test Track received vehicle updates. These cars are not new, but they feel like it. From a guest-facing perspective, the cars have new seats and seatbelts, and a fresh coat of paint. They quite literally have that new car smell. Now that’s some limited time magic!

According to Imagineering, the updated vehicles have a subtler design with a darker wrap to help the vehicles blend-in better with the environments of Test Track 3.0. The redesigned ride vehicles lean more into the feel of a research & development prototype.

Not a whole lot to say about these redone ride vehicles. They’re fine, I guess. Nothing special; a bit boring. That’s okay on its own, even though the old ride vehicles were very distinct, they were also dated by the end of their runs. Those of us holding out hope for something looking like The Homer will have to wait for Test Track 4.0, I suppose. Maybe that will be the rumored Simpsons ride at Walt Disney World?!

Test Track Ride Experience

The Test Track reimagining debuts a new musical score, which I really like. It utilizes a dual-narrator format, with both a human guide and an automated vehicle voice. I like the idea of this, but the execution falls a bit flat–both are too dull and forgettable. Maybe they’ll grow on me?

Test Track 3.0 features new show scenes have been added showcasing technological advances and how our lifestyles and relationships to mobility connect everyone. Enjoy a joy ride through scenes focusing on onboard technology, customization and personalization. Followed by a trip through a scenic outdoor route reminding us all of the joys of driving, taking in the world around us.

The track layout is exactly the same in all three versions of Test Track, with only the scenery changing. One thing I do want to call your attention to is the window offering a view into the queue ahead of seat belt-check. It’s a nice little touch that sure beats gazing at corrugated metal.

The first of the scenes showcases how vehicles can use advanced cameras and sensors to “see” the world they drive through. This begins in what appears to be a normal city, with street signs, lampposts and storefronts. It then switches over to the car’s assisted driving system for a demonstration of LIDAR.

The scene goes dark and you see small pixels of light covering every edge and corner of the scene. Kinda like a car-ified Osborne Lights. LIDAR maps these pixels into a 3D image in front of the car to differentiate between the road, obstacles and environment. Imagineers were able to represent this tech utilizing over 29,000 points of light.

This is one of two major highlights part of Test Track 3.0 for a couple of reasons. First, it looks really cool and has serious wow-factor. It’s an impressive display of technology that succeeds in entertaining guests. It also succeeds in educating them about how this technology works. Put those two things together, and we have a bona fide ‘edutainment alert’ on our hands. Old school EPCOT Center fans, rejoice!

The next section of the ride drives into a House of the Future (thankfully not sponsored by Monsanto) where the attraction showcases how you someday might be able to customize vehicles at home, in your own garage.

This portion of the attraction is similar to the later scenes in Spaceship Earth, except minus a family watching the moon landing or the Apple-esque founder scarfing down pizza and working on his desktop computer.

Canonically, I’m going to assume these are all the same home, and the home is now owned by the kids watching the moon landing, locked into their childhood house by the golden handcuffs of Prop. 13.

The highlight of this scene is the “mirrors” that show you want customized cars can look like, with throwbacks to the first and second Test Tracks. This effect remains impressive, and that’s not just me–it was easily the most-photographed portion of the ride (from what I could see) in each of my half dozen-plus ride-throughs of Test Track 3.0 thus far.

The actual House of the Future is less impressive. It’s been staged to look like a real house, and there are easter eggs, nods to EPCOT Center, and other little details. But honestly, it falls a bit flat for me. It feels like a model house, and lacks a lived-in warmth or personality.

Still, this scene also fits the ‘edutainment’ blueprint and is sufficiently engaging for guests, even if we are driving a bit off-course from the whole ‘Test Track’ conceit.

The next scene is a drive through the forest. During the reimagining, Imagineers shared that they wanted to bring the outdoors inside, creating a thick canopy of trees overhead to conceal the large show building. They wanted to create a feeling of driving through the Pacific Northwest, and focused on four different types of foliage: Cedar, Spruce, Maple and Oak.

Past iterations of Test Track were in a conceptual world, whereas the goal of Test Track 3.0 is to be rooted in reality. You might say that Test Track is thus a misnomer, since you’re driving through an (ostensibly) real city, then you head home, then you leave the garage to drive through a forest.

I realize Imagineering was boxed into a corner with the previous track and scene layout, so I’m fairly forgiving of the ‘plot holes’ in the attraction, and that the attraction’s name is now a bit of a misnomer. Frankly, I’m not averse to these changes, as the previous Test Track felt cavernous; setting it in the real world also makes it feel less industrial. The forest looks decent enough at first, and the scent of cedar is a nice touch.

Charitably, you could say this forest scene is reminiscent of Living with the Land, and it’s an upgrade over similar scenes that were overly industrial and didn’t have much to see. I think the second part of that’s fair, but I question just how much is here to see–it doesn’t hold a candle to Living with the Land, from my perspective.

Less charitably, this reminds me of Radiator Springs Racers. That attraction uses the same ride system–although you might not realize that since they’re such sharp departures from one another–and similarly leans heavily on man-made natural environments. Well, not really “similarly” since everything about the landscapes in Radiator Springs Racers blows Test Track out of the water.

Least charitably of all, this reminds me of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, which is filled with expanses of dark bayou. Thankfully, the forest section of Test Track is not nearly that long, and doesn’t even come close to overstaying its welcome. But I nevertheless wish Imagineers would’ve learned something from that and made this scene less dark and more visually engaging.

The final scene is the main event, as always, and has been markedly enhanced in this iteration of Test Track.

Before revving up and racing through the speed loop, there’s a new projection dome that shows a future world of transportation. An Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, you might say. This is really cool, and is unquestionably the statement piece of Test Track 3.0. It’s what I’d use for this post’s thumbnail if I didn’t look totally tubular in that on-ride photo. Very EPCOT-esque.

The rest of Test Track 3.0 is the same speed loop as always. Over 25 years later, this still gets the people going. WDW diehards like us can fixate on all of the little details and what distinguishes an Imagineered attraction from an ordinary thrill ride, but at the end of the day, it’s “the fast track” that’s most likely to resonate with the average guest. Certain ride profiles are tough to beat, and Walt Disney World just reimagined a couple of the best in the last two years.

Test Track 3.0 Post Show

After exiting the attraction and passing the PhotoPass area, there’s a lovely mural that’s in keeping with the spirit of EPCOT Center. This is a nice touch, and I’m glad to see that Imagineering continues to create art in this style. It’s also just flat-out cool and awe-inspiring.

The entirety of the post-show after this is a General Motors showroom. All of it. So your opinion of that will likely depend on whether you’re a Chevy or Ford person, I suppose. As a general matter, it seems like this is the version of Test Track with the most product placement.

Every Test Track has been Chevy-heavy even by EPCOT standards, which might explain why it still actually has a sponsor and is regularly updated. It seems like General Motors is getting its money’s worth, too. The Corvette drew a constant crowd of little kids and old dudes wanting their photos with it. Maybe kids will fall in love with Corvettes like I fell in love with Figment thanks to a visit to EPCOT!

Test Track 3.0 Verdict

Is now a bad point in the review to tell you that I’m not the world’s biggest Test Track fan? Test Track has never cracked the top 25 in Our Rankings of All Rides at Walt Disney World. It’s an exceptional ride system (as evidenced by superior implementations elsewhere) that could marry dark ride with thrill ride in a fantastic way. But it’s yet to realize its potential in any of the three versions.

Test Track 3.0 being inspired by World of Motion, as originally advertised by Imagineering, was very intriguing to me as an old school EPCOT Center fan. What I remember most World of Motion was its goofiness, humor, and visual gags. World of Motion definitely skews more towards the ‘tainment portion of edutainment, with a lot that made guests laugh.

I loved the idea of incorporating this into Test Track, a ride that has never really had trouble with the educational component. Say what you will about Test Track, but all three versions have pretty well combined learning about the design and/or testing process with thrills. It’s always been EPCOT-esque, in that sense.

What Test Track has always struggled with is personality and whimsy; the first iteration of Test Track is still the high water mark from this perspective. I don’t want to romanticize the original Test Track, as there’s a tendency to venerate anything that’s gone from Walt Disney World. Every extinct attraction is more beloved in death than it was in life.

To that point, I thought Test Track 2.0 back in 2012 was a major upgrade. The “TRON Track” aesthetic was gorgeous and had much more fluidity, infusing the attraction with a spirit of futurism. It was a good EPCOT Center attraction that might’ve piqued curiosity in guests.

By contrast, the original Test Track was loud and utilitarian rather than elegant and optimistic. It felt like going through an industrial warehouse where testing was actually occurring. The original Test Track treated guests like literal crash test dummies, and had some of the worst impulses of the mid to late 1990s stylistic sensibility that hurt so much of Future World. It was a sharp contrast to the original EPCOT Center pavilions.

What the original Test Track did have was personality. Taking off the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, this is why many fans still love it to this day.

The ride had its eccentricities and a pre-show with quotable lines, even if it was very much a warts and all ride that fans would be begging to be refurbished if it still existed today. And it probably would still exist in that 1999 form if the thrill ride’s reimaginings weren’t being paid for with Chevy Bucks!

I’ve come to appreciate Walt Disney World attractions with ‘character’ and think this is immensely important and undervalued. Over time, fans have done this with the scripts or pre-shows for Soarin, Spaceship Earth, Flight of Passage, the PeopleMover and more.

Imagineering nailed this from start to finish with Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. It’s an example of edutainment with an emphasis on the entertainment via thrills and charm, and silly lines that will be quoted for decades to come. Even though it’s trademark Marvel humor, Cosmic Rewind is its own thing and fans will only grow more fond of it over time.

These little quirks in attractions and their scripts become beloved–idiosyncrasies that fans embrace with open arms over the passage of time. Test Track 2.0 cut too much of this to its own detriment, and never really developed a fan following as a result. If anything, it’s probably OG Test Track (and obviously World of Motion) that’s still the most beloved version of the ride.

My biggest problem with Test Track 3.0 is that it seems to take away what little personality Test Track 2.0 did have. That’s why I focused on the loss of the Chevrolet Design Studio. For better or worse, that was the aspect of Test Track 2.0 that gave it a connection with fans, and now the ride doesn’t have that.

In its place, Test Track 3.0 has a lot of fan service. This can be fun! But once the initial luster is lost with a few visual gags and props that remind fans of better versions of this attraction and EPCOT Center, there isn’t that hook that’ll form the foundation of nostalgia or sentimentality. At least, I didn’t catch one. It’s always possible one will emerge over time, sort of like the current Spaceship Earth script crept up on us.

Of course, there’s that ‘fast track’ that zooms guests around outdoors. And the ride profile even before that, which is still pretty fun! So it’s not as if Test Track is suddenly bad. To be very clear, it’s still a good ride.

If anything, the third version is an iterative improvement of the ride experience and one that was badly needed post-TRON Lightcycle Run. In a Walt Disney World where that thrill ride now exists over at Magic Kingdom, the second version of Test Track was inviting unfavorable comparisons.

I just wish Test Track 3.0 had a bit more personality. Maybe memorable, cheesy lines of dialogue between the narrators? Perhaps some Marc Davis-esque characters or visual gags in the show scenes? Frankly, I’d love to see that sea serpent reproduced not in miniature form on a desk in the House of the Future, but instead in full-size form in the Pacific Northwest forest scene.

That scene is already a bit of a stretch story-wise, so why not just have fun with it?! Have guests come face-to-face with the sea serpent when rounding the corner at the edge of a lake, maybe even have the LIDAR detect it. I don’t know–I’m not a creative. Silly as it might sound, this is the type of thing (even if not this, specifically) that I would’ve loved to see in Test Track 3.0.

The second version suffered from taking itself too seriously, which is compounded by the attraction offering not-so-thinly-veiled advertising for General Motors. Having that counterbalanced by a bit of quintessential ‘Weird Disney’ would’ve done wonders. Filling the twisting track indoors with interesting and engaging scenery a la World of Motion would’ve been awesome. They got halfway there, maybe more, but not all of the way.

Ultimately, Test Track 3.0 is still an iterative improvement over its immediate predecessor and, even though it lacks the character and cheekiness of the OG Test Track, it is still the top attraction of the trio. Both of the previous versions were getting tired when retired, whereas this feels fresh. Grounding the settings in the real world, as opposed to a cavernous warehouse, is a win.

There aren’t really any glaring problems with what Imagineering did do with Test Track 3.0. There’s nothing truly “ugly” about this ride reimagining. There’s a couple of great and wow-inducing elements and a bit of bad, but most of Test Track 3.0 is a just fine.

Over time, “just fine” has how I’ve come to feel about most of the scenes in all iterations of Test Track, so that’s about par for the course. If you feel passionately about Test Track, your mileage may vary on this.

Test Track 3.0 could use more that establishes a connection with guests and forms the foundation of nostalgia, but it’s still an upgrade. The reimagined ride is only inspired by World of Motion in the loosest sense; that should’ve been pushed further, even if it took more time and money (even if from Disney–not like they’re going broke).

If Imagineering wants to keep evoking EPCOT Center, they really should do so in substance and spirit instead of easter eggs. This has the latter, and that’ll hit with fans for a ride or two. But if Walt Disney World wants modern day rides to be beloved long into the future, decades after they go extinct, it’s really about the heart. Test Track 3.0 is an upgrade on paper (or in the design studio); however, even just a bit more emotional resonance would go a long way.

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Your Thoughts

What do you think of the Test Track reimagining? Excited for Test Track 3.0, or do you miss the OG or second version? What about the Chevrolet Design Studio? Which version of this ride is your favorite? Are you pleased with the World of Motion easter eggs, or were you hoping for a more substantive level of inspiration? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!