Before the days of carbon fibre, someone figured out that if you took the right piece of mahogany, bent it the right way, and dropped a powerful engine into, you had something that no modern boat has ever really matched.
These were not production line boats. Craftsmen spent months making a single vessel, polishing the chrome by hand and matching the wood grain. Upon completion they were, to put quite simply, a thing of beauty.
You still see them on the lakes of northern Italy, or Lake Geneva, or Tahoe, and typically with someone who understand and has an appreciation for fine craftsmanship.
Here are five examples.
1. Riva Aquarama
Jeremy Clarkson, while piloting one through Venice on Top Gear, called it “the most beautiful thing ever made.” He was not wrong, and he was also not the first person to feel that way.
Carlo Riva launched the Aquarama in 1962, built on the hull of the earlier Riva Tritone. The name came from Cinerama, the widescreen film format popular at the time, and you can see it in the sweeping panoramic windshield that wraps around the front of the cockpit. The hull was hand-laid mahogany, finished in multiple coats of varnish until it looked more like furniture than a boat. It had cream leather seats, polished chrome on every fitting, twin engines, often Chrysler of later Ferrari and Lamborghini, and was capable of pushing 40 knots (75 km/h for the non-water goers.
Production ran from 1962 to 1996, and in that time the Aquarama attracted Brigitte Bardot, Gianni Agnelli, and every person in between who understood what a serious object looked like. The last hull ever built, number 774, was delivered to the founding family of Sony Corporation in 1998 and clocked fewer than 20 hours in 12 years. In 2011 it sold at auction for $975,000. Not too bad for a boat that was already old enough to retire.
2. Chris-Craft 19ft Barrel Back
Chris-Craft built a lot of beautiful boats. The Barrel Back is the one collectors argue over.
Produced between 1939 and 1942, with 433 hulls total across the 19ft version, it got the name from its transom. From behind, the full semicircle stern sits above the water looking exactly like a floating barrel. To get that shape right, Chris-Craft put only their best craftsmen on the line. The resulting boat had a Bugatti-style fold-down windshield, a one-piece instrument panel and a 130hp six-cylinder engine.
Carlo Riva reportedly studied the Barrel Back closely before designing the Ariston and eventually the Aquarama, so in a way you are looking at the boat that started everything. Surviving examples in original condition rarely come up for sale, and when they do they rarely last long.
3. Hacker-Craft Triple Cockpit Runabout
John Hacker founded his boat company in Detroit in 1908, the same day Henry Ford produced the first Model T. The parallel is not coincidental. Both men were obsessed with speed, precision and the idea that engineering could be beautiful and not just serve a purpose.
Hacker invented the V-hull design, which is the reason modern powerboats plane on top of the water instead of ploughing through it. He also built a 33ft triple cockpit runabout for Henry Ford, powered by a World War I Liberty V12 originally used in biplanes and notably, the King of Siam ordered a custom 40ft Hacker in 1930 with 800 horsepower.
The Triple Cockpit Runabout is the model that defines the brand. It features a long mahogany foredeck, three separate seating areas and nickel chrome hardware. The company still makes them today in Ticonderoga, New York, starting at $235,000, and an extensive waiting list.
4. Boesch 560 Acapulco
Boesch is the one on this list that most people outside Europe have never heard of, which is a shame because the Swiss have been building the finest lake runabouts in the world since 1920 and they have never once felt the need to tell anyone about it.
Jakob Boesch started the yard on Lake Zurich and his son Walter took it into the modern era in the 1940s, developing the Horizon-Gliding hull, a design so effective for water skiing that Boesch boats served as official tow boats at both the World and European Waterski Championships from 1960 to 1991. Movie stars like Romy Schneider were photographed in them and megayacht owners ordered them as tenders with a one-line brief: buy the best.
The 560 Acapulco is the model that built the brands reputation, featuring a compact, low-slung, mahogany over laminated hull that outlasts fibreglass. To go the extra mile, the wood used in each boat is selected and prepared up to a decade before it goes near the hull.
5. Riva Tritone
The Aquarama gets all the attention, but the Tritone is the one that would be a mistake to overlook.
Carlo Riva built the Tritone between 1950 and 1966 and it was the first twin-engine boat in the Riva classic range and the hull that the Aquarama was later based on. Of the standard Tritone, 221 were built but of the Super Tritone, only 21 ever hit the water.
It is longer and more commanding than the Aquarama, with an open sunbathing area at the stern that was ahead of its time, and a presence on the water that makes everything around it look pretty ordinary. The proportions are perfect, which should be expected given Riva spent years getting them right.
Finding one now is not easy. Finding one in good condition is harder still.
Carbon fibre is faster. Fibreglass is cheaper. Neither of them looks like this.