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DESCRIPTION
This special boat sold for $775,000 (not including buyers premium) at the Mecum Kissimmee Auction.
In 1842 young Pietro Riva traveled to Sarnico on the shores of Lake Iseo in northern Italy, where he skillfully rejuvenated two storm-damaged boats abandoned by the locals as beyond repair. Word of his great carpentry skills spread, and he quickly established a reputation for work of almost miraculous quality. Soon Riva was commissioned by a wealthy client to build a boat that would showcase his extraordinary talents. More orders followed, and Cantieri Riva was in business.
By the turn of the century, Riva’s son Ernesto had established the company’s reputation for quality passenger and cargo vessels; subsequently, his grandson Serafino turned to international racing, winning several championships in the years between the world wars.
In the 1950s, Carlo Riva focused on luxury pleasure boats whose every detail typified the Italian flair for style and grace, developing a long list of rich and famous clients that included Brigitte Bardot, Sean Connery, Peter Sellers, Prince Rainier of Monaco, King Hussein, the Shah of Persia, Carlo Ponti and Sophia Loren, and the King of Sweden.
Finished with the finest woods and fittings, these luxurious and artfully built machines were powered by a variety of high-performance engines, first from Chris Craft and later from Cadillac, Chrysler and Chevrolet. Today, surviving Rivas of the post-1950 era have become highly-sought collector’s items that have reached the status of objet d’art.
The most celebrated design of the Carlo Riva era, the Aquarama is renowned as a nautical legend in its own right, a timeless merging of design, craftsmanship and performance. Based on the earlier Tritone hull, the Aquarama incorporated the Tritone’s open sunbathing deck while introducing new features such as separate front seats and a central non-slip gangway for access to a rear-mounted swim ladder. Each example is unique, having been built in each case to customer specifications. Like the Tritone, the Aquarama was a twin-engine boat, with units ranging in power from 185 HP to 385 HP each in the Super model. The rarest version of the Aquarama line, which was offered between 1962 and 1996, is the Super Aquarama, 203 examples of which were built from 1963 to 1971.
Mecum Auction is pleased to present the most unique boat in the Super Aquarama lineage, specially built for legendary adventurer Cal Connell. Motor racer, inventor of the fiberglass water ski and the founder of Crusader Marine in Louisville, Kentucky, Connell ordered Hull #125 from Carlo Riva in 1966 as a platform for his new 396/400 HP Chevrolet big block marine engine, thus making it the most powerful Super Aquarama ever made and the only one of its kind. Connell owned and maintained 125 for 6 years before selling her to the Northwestern Golf Company, after which she eventually found a home in Florida.
After her exterior was damaged by Hurricane Frances while stored on land in 2004, 125 was delivered to Riva World in Uithoorn, Holland, famous for their outstanding restorations of Riva wooden boats. Under the direction of Riva World’s Sandro Zani and with special guidance from both Carlo Riva and Cal Connell, 125 was completely restored to her original form, a process that involved correcting past modifications, fabricating components and casting new trim pieces to replace one-off items that had been replaced over her 40 years.
The result is a superb restoration of a historically significant Riva that possesses all the performance, grace and panache bestowed upon her by the legendary gentlemen who conceived and built her over forty years ago.
Riva Super Aquarama #125 Specifications
Fuel Gas/Petrol
Hull Material Wood
Beam 2.62 m (8’6)
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Max Draft 2′
Horsepower (total) 400
Fuel Tank 105 gal
Holding Tank N/A
Water Tank N/A
Engine Hours 10
Designer Carlo Riva
Cruising Speed 40 mph
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