West Show
About This Machine
West Show is a rare electro-mechanical, single-player pinball machine from 1976, manufactured by the Italian company AMI s.p.a. during their brief production run from 1975 to 1977. It's an Add-A-Ball game with a Western theme, and its backglass is noted as a near copy of Gottlieb's 1975 'Quick Draw.'
The playfield includes two flippers, two pop bumpers, two slingshots, a 4-bank of drop targets, six standup targets, and a ball kicker. Its end-of-ball bonus mechanism is a clever piece of engineering: hitting all the drop targets opens a gate that diverts a draining ball from the outlane, sending it to a hidden ball kicker that fires the ball toward a target worth 500,000 points. The backbox score display includes two dummy zeroes, a small but distinctive touch.
The West Show's Western theme and rustic art style reflect its late-EM-era design. Existing examples show variation in inserts, target caps, and skirts across playfields, suggesting after-factory part substitutions were made during or after production - a detail that adds to its appeal for collectors interested in the manufacturing quirks of small European pinball makers.
Images (10)
Technical Details
- Theme:
- Western
- Notable Features:
- Flippers (2), Pop bumpers (2), Slingshots (2), 4-bank drop targets (1), Standup targets (6), Ball kicker (1). End-of-ball bonus. The backbox score has two dummy zeroes. Underneath the large right-side slingshot plastic is a smaller slingshot and a ball return lane with a gate. When all drop targets are hit, the gate opens from under this plastic into the outlane to divert a draining ball to roll under the plastic and to a hidden ball kicker which shoots the ball to light a yellow left-side target lit for 500,000 points.