For decades, Ferruccio Lamborghini's Riva Aquarama sat in the corner of a boat yard, stashed underneath a tarp, rotting into oblivion. Forty-five years after it was commissioned by old man Lambo himself, it's back on the water, complete with not one, but two classic Lamborghini V12s.
Uncovered by a Riva collector in 2010, the Riva Aquarama Lamborghini underwent a complete restoration at the hands of Riva World. But to keep the Aquarama original, the owner of the Dutch company tasked with the overhaul traveled back and forth to Italy to visit the Lamborghini museum, meticulously documenting every detail before work began.
Three years, hundreds of hours, thousands of sandings and repairs, and 25 layers of clear-coat later, the Aquarama has been restored to its original glory. All the seats were reupholstered, the chrome shines, and rather than fit new buttons and switches, the entire dash was dismantled, with all the electronics pulled apart, repaired, refurbished, and reinstalled. And then there are the engines.
Lamborghini commissioned the Riva Aquarama to be fitted with his then-new 4.0-liter V12 that powered the 350GT – the very first Lamborghini ever built. In place of the standard set of V8s were two V12s, each good for 350 horsepower, propelling the Aquarama to 48 knots. But sourcing the engines was difficult.
"One of the two 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, the head of Dutch Riva. "That is why we bought two other V12 engines, one of which in the US, and converted them so they would be fully suitable for use in a boat. Thanks to the Ferruccio Lamborghini Museum, we were allowed to disassemble and re-create various original parts of the original engine in the museum."
Zani and his team also tapped long-time Lamborghini test driver Bob Wallace to retune the engines for maritime use, with one engine spinning to the left and the other to the right to motivate the Riva. Wallace got a ride in the restored boat before his death earlier this year. And it must have been an awesome ride. Hear it in action below.
Photos courtesy of Maurice Volmeyer Fotografie
