Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril at Disneyland Paris was a stop gap measure for extra capacity. When the park opened, there was only one roller coaster, Big Thunder Mountain, and that side of the park was quite low in capacity. Space Mountain was on the docket and about to start construction, with a 1995 opening.
In 1993, they boosted park capacity by adding two small walkthrough attractions to Frontierland and Adventureland. A smaller temporary version of the proposed Indiana Jones Coaster was fast tracked and the current Temple of Peril was designed, fabricated, built and open in less than a year. The small Pirouettes du Vieux Moulin ferris wheel was also a 1993 attraction in Fantasyland.
Temple du Peril was expected to have a 5 years life expectancy and be replaced by a more definitive version of the ride after that period. Alas, while Space Mountain was an incredible success that boosted attendance, the hotels still dragged the financials of the resort down and investment in rides pretty much stopped after 1995, except for the conversion of Captain EO into Honey, I shrunk the Audience in 1999. By 1999, Temple du Peril was drawing insane waits due to its small 8 passenger trains and was starting to have mechanical issues. As a result, it closed for 6 months to receive track replacement and new trains with 12 passengers.
Temple du Peril original car
The trains were installed backward to give the park a new "ride" in 2000 with mitigated success. The trains were flipped forward in 2004 and the ride has run like that since. In 2014, the ride closed for a long refurbishment where the Temple was made "permanent" with the same rock sculpting techniques used in modern Disney rides and the loop was changed.
