The RIVA Aquarama is a Millionaires Luxury hand crafted wooden runabout built by Italian yacht builder Riva. Production of the Special Aquarama and its derivatives ( Lungo, Super,and Special) ran from 1962 until 1996. ( read More below)
The hull was based on the Riva Tritone an earlier model speedboat by Riva which in turn was inspired by the American mahogany Chris-Craft runabouts.
The boat's speed and beauty, and hand craftsmanship earned it praise as the Ferrari of the boat world.
The Riva was founded by Pietro Riva in 1842 and run by Carlo Riva through it’s 1969 sale to the American Whittaker Corporation.
Its evocative name derived in part from the Widescreen Cinerama movie format popular in the early 1960s, echoed in its sweeping wrap-around windshield with conjures images from another time.
This Aquarama Special - (1972-1996) with a Total build of only 277 - very rare indeed.
It is worth noting that A Riva Lamborghini (1968) a one-off special boat that was powered by 2 Lamborghini V12 engines !
HULL Number: 278
Riva Hull No: 278 was built in late 1968 under a commission by Ferruccio Lamborghini, the founder of the Italian sports car company that bears his name.
It took 3 months to build and Lamborghini didn't just sit back and wait for his boat to show up.
Dissatisfied with the standard V8 engine he took a pair of 350 bhp 4.0 litre V12 Lamborghini engines from the Lamborghini 350 GT model and adapted them for the boat.
This made it not only the fastest Aquarama ever built, but an Aquarama with the heart of a Lamborghini power plant - that was a head turning machine with sound to match.
Lamborghini’s Aquarama eventually ended up out of sight under a boatyard tarp in later years.
Eventually a Dutch Riva collector found it and a few years ago it was handed over to Riva World in Uithoorn in the Netherlands to put it back in all it’s formal glory.
It was fully repaired, sanded and over 25 coatings re-applied.
The Riva chrome work was polished and renewed plus all of the buttons and switches were disassembled and restored as factory fit, the seats were reupholstered in new Italian leather to match the old.
"One of the 2 original engines from the Riva can still be seen in the Ferruccio Lamborghini Museum in Italy, but unfortunately wasn’t available for sale for this project,” says Sandro Zani.
“That is why we bought 2 other V12 engines, 1 of which from the United States then converted them so they would be fully suitable for use in the boat.
Thanks to the Ferruccio Lamborghini Museum they were allowed to disassemble and re-create various original parts of the original V12 engine in the museum.
In addition Lino Morosini, who 45 years ago was head of the Riva Engine Division and one of the fathers of the Aquarama Lamborghini, provided them with additional information with which we were able to adapt the twin V12 powerhouses with water-cooling so they were completely in line with the original specimens.”
The restored Riva Aquarama sports V12 Lamborghini 4.0 with 6 twin Weber carburetors punching over 350 bhp and making for a top speed of 48 knots (55 mph, 89 km/h) on water compared to the 40 knots (46 mph, 74 km/h) of the V8 Aquaramas varients.
The V12 was the way to go to produce a truley awesome machine !
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The restoration team also had the input of Lamborghini’s former test driver and developer Mr Bob Wallace, who passed away last year at the age of 75. With Mr Wallaces help the engines were adapted for marine service and made to rotate in opposite directions to eliminate prop walk.
After the restoration the Riva Aquarama was taken to Italy and put through its paces under the eye of its creator Mr Carlo Riva on Lago d’Iseo where it was origianlly built.
On all Riva’s there’s no fiberglass. The hull is made of deep, rich wood with a lighter wood deck. Apparently Carlo Riva said he wouldn't even tolerate a plastic toilet seat. It is also a wonderful bit of engineering that has the reputation of being almost impossible to roll.
Inside every cockpit is all white and turquoise leather trim.
Riva didn't stint on the craftsmanship having their workers spend over 3,000 hours on some boats and using 30 microns of chrome - YES, 30 microns on his boats when Italian cars only got 1.5 microns!
With all that, it isn't surprising that they sold for £250,000, which is what a restored one costs today.
The timing of the RIVA Aquarama was fortuitous it came out just as the ‘Jet Set’ came on the scene in the late 70’s and 80’s the rich and famous were flying about the World looking for toys to show off the wealth.
A total of 769 boats were built and ended up in the hands of Celbs like Peter Sellers, Prince Rainier of Monaco and Ferrucio Lamborghini among many other celebrities and they are very sort after even today - A True Timeless piece of beauty.
This is a true scaled model produced by the company of the Iconic Boat.
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9 фев 2019
