Cigarette Racing Team, the Original Go-Fast Boat

Don Aronow, Thunderboat Row and a famous name

Don Aronow was already a serial boatbuilder by the late 1960s. He had founded Formula in 1962, Donzi in 1964 and Magnum Marine in 1966, selling each one. A non-compete clause kept him from building under his own name, so the first Cigarette boat was built in 1969 in Elton Cary's Miami Beach facility. In 1970, once the non-compete expired, he formally started the Cigarette Racing Team (the company still dates its heritage to that first 1969 boat), a name reportedly borrowed from a fast rum-running boat of the Prohibition era.

The boats dominated offshore racing and became so famous that cigarette boat turned into the generic term for any long, narrow, deep-V performance boat, for better or worse given their popularity with smugglers in the 1970s and 1980s. Aronow sold the company in 1982 and went on to build Blue Thunder catamarans for US Customs. Cigarette has since passed through several owners and today builds in Opa-locka, north of Miami.

From the Top Gun to the 515 and the Tirranna

We cover three Cigarettes, and they trace how the brand has grown without dropping its roots. The Cigarette 38 Top Gun is the model most people picture: a long, narrow V-bottom only 8 feet wide, with 24 degrees of deadrise and twin high-horsepower sterndrive engines, built for speed in offshore conditions. It was introduced in the fall of 1986 for the 1987 model year, reached its 600th hull by 2003 and is still built today with twin Mercury Racing 565 or 600 SCi engines.

The Cigarette 515 is the modern, much bigger expression of that same V-bottom idea. It debuted at the 2018 Miami show as the Cigarette-AMG 515 Project ONE, stretches to 51 feet 5 inches on a 9 foot 6 inch beam and pairs a stepped 24 degree bottom with an all-carbon deck. Twin Mercury Racing 1350 or 1550 turbocharged engines are reported to take it beyond 125 mph, and it carries a roomier cabin than most sportboats. Later variants include a KITH co-branded edition.

The Cigarette 59 Tirranna, launched in 2019 for the company's 50th anniversary, goes the other way. It is a luxury center console with a 14 foot beam, a California king cabin, a carbon hardtop and either four Mercury V12 600s or six Mercury Racing 500R outboards, aimed at owners who want speed with comfort and a group of friends aboard.

The current range includes the 41 Nighthawk, 42 Auroris, 52 Thunder and 59 Tirranna center consoles plus the 38 Top Gun, 42 X and 515 performance boats. Mercury Racing engines and long-running special edition collaborations, including with Mercedes-AMG, have kept the brand in the spotlight.

Buying a used Cigarette

Used Cigarettes range from 1980s Top Guns that can be found for modest sums to late-model 515s and center consoles priced in the seven figures. Engine and drive history drives value far more than age. A Top Gun with fresh Mercury Racing engines and documented drive rebuilds can be worth more than a newer boat with tired power. Cigarette sells through a network of dealers in Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Caribbean, and offers a certified pre-owned program.

Get a performance-boat specialist to survey and sea-trial the boat.

• Engine hours, compression and leak-down tests on high-output engines
• Drive and transmission rebuild records
• Transom, stringers and bulkheads for stress cracks on hard-run boats
• Steering, trim tabs and hydraulic systems
• Outboard hours and bracket condition on center console models