Heartland Classics

1959 Riva Ariston #219

by Dan Diehl
In 2009 I went to the Tavares boat show looking for information on restoring my 21’ Cobra. Terry Fiest had his beautifully restored Cobra at the show and I thought I would take pictures of it to help with my project. After finding many of the parts I needed at the show’s swap meet and getting my pictures of Terry’s boat, I was feeling pretty good about my Cobra. My friend Clay Thompson, a knowledgeable and prolific restorer of wooden boats, and I headed for the docks to see the boats that were there for the show. As it turns out, the Marque Class group for the ’09 show was the Riva series of boats. Clay is also an owner of a Riva Aquarama and a Riva 1959 Tritone. When we walked out on the dock, there was an Ariston on each side of the walkway. I was spellbound. I’ve always thought the Cobra had the best lines of any boat ever built but when I saw the Ariston, I put it at the top next to the Cobra. In my mind, these are the two most beautiful boats ever made. Right there, that day, I knew I had to have an Ariston.

I’m the kind of guy who loves a project. All of my boats are “near basket cases” when I acquire them. Well, try to find a junked out Ariston! There aren’t many. After looking on the internet for several months, both in the US and in other parts of the world, I was having no luck at finding a project Ariston and was getting more and more discouraged.
One night Clay called me to tell me about a project Ariston he found on Peter Mellon’s Antique Boat America website. I immediately called Peter and he made arrangements with the owner in Houston for me to take a look. My wife, Alicia, and I flew from Tulsa to see it. It was truly a “milamore” boat. That means it looks good from a mile or more. It was discouraging at first but it did have most of the hardware with it. Alicia said it was a boat with “lots of potential but not much else”. The only thing keeping it in one piece was the fiberglass someone had put on the outside of it years ago in an attempt at “restoration”. Peter did a great job of negotiating the deal and a week later Alicia and I drove down to trailer it home. This Ariston, #219, was one of the first three boats brought to the United States by Carlo Riva in 1959 for the Miami Boat Show. As it turns out, Clay’s Tritone is one of the other Rivas brought to that show. What are the odds of that? Both, though, are in TERRIBLE shape. We just couldn’t resist the urge to get the boats together again after 50 years for some pictures. So, on our way home, we took a long detour to Clay’s home in Altus, Oklahoma to re-unite these two potentially gorgeous boats. We took pictures, ate dinner with Clay and his wife Patty and were off to Tulsa. Now the real fun begins.


Many thanks go out to Peter Mellon and Clay Thompson for finding the boat for us. I mostly want to thank my wife Alicia, for having enough faith in me to help make it happen.

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