The Pacific Wheel spins on Friday, April 25, 2008.  After ten days on the E-Bay auction block, the Pacific Wheel sold to the highest bidder, Grant Humphreys, CEO of Humphreys Real Estate Investments, for $132,400.00  on Friday.  Fifty percent of the winning bid will be donated to Special Olympics Southern California. The Pacific Park’s high-flyin’, 90-feet-tall, famous Ferris wheel, which weighs 122,000 pounds, is 30 feet wide, reaches speeds of 3 RPM, includes 20 gondolas with a maximum six riders per car, accommodates up to 800 riders per hour and illuminates with 5,392 light bulbs. The Pacific Wheel debuted May 1996 with the opening of Pacific Park and was adapted as the world’s first solar-powered Ferris wheel in November 1998. The nine-story tall Pacific Wheel was later selected “Best Solar System” in the Reader’s Digest Best in America 2006. The Ferris wheel originally cost approximately $800,000. It has become a Southern California icon over the past 12 years and has provided more than 3 million rides over the beautiful Santa Monica bay. The new Ferris wheel costs $1,500,000.00 and features over 160,000 LED lights which use 75% less energy than the current wheel’s lights.