FWIW the comparison to Harley Davidson. My neighbor is the man whom started the Harley Davidson dealerships in KC and his kids now run them, many know whom I speak of. (Worth) With respect to clothing and the like I was told Harley made more $ selling there accessories and in there clothing lines than the manufacturing of bikes. I was amazed until he showed me 4 stainless steel Harley logo license plate screws that were $5 per and then all the dress up goodies that owners add to a production bike. Not an apples to apples comparison to Cig but I see the limited appeal of clothing to a point. Certainly more Harleys on the road than Cigs in the water and with Cig moving into the 1+million dollar CC market it will be more limited.

agreed, there is money to be made there, i have 4 or 5 cig shirts, the best one is from about 8 years ago and was 50 bucks for a white tee, nice and thick and good quality, latest was from a year or so ago still 50 bucks and a thin cheap shirt, ill buy a couple/few a year if they are good quality... in ref to branding, look at shirts like HD, Von dutch, and Ed Hardy from a while back, ask people who Von dutch was or Ed hardy they had no clue, they thought the shirts were cool...
speaking of someone trying to make money off of boating and Apache lore, Ive said before is that douche on FB and IG Chris kippenberger and Vehicule' magazine, he is printing old Apache stuff with a free ben kramer logo, or free sal magluta logo and publishing other peoples pics as his own for profit.. if any on here are following they shouldnt.. he is an ass, he tried to screw up the warpath sale as well when they wouldn't pay him a 10k fee...

Comparing Cigarette to Harley is apples to oranges - completely different beasts. Not even a close comparison. Cigarette (offshore powerboats in general) is a SUPER niche market. I'd say it'd be more comparable to a super car company. Not even Ferrari or Lamborghini since they have been bought out and commercialized and going more mainstream. I'd say Cigarette is more compatible to the likes Bugatti. Bugatti isn't worried about a Millenial problem. Or if you want to use Motorcycles something like Ducati or even more like say, Aprilia since Ducati is pretty main stream now too. Cigarettes are sold to a fraction of a fraction of the population. I don't really see Cigarette not having a customer base. They have grown astronomically over the past 15 years, even through a recession. Skip drove the company where the money always is going to be - The worlds wealthiest. For better or worse, he wasn't worried about catering to average joes (like me, who is a fan of Cig and have owned a couple but has never bought a new one). Skip was always focused on the next sale to the big buyer (whale). And while the millennial problem with buying merchandise will be a huge problem for large manufacturer of bulk products (HD, big car manufacturers, etc), I truly believe there will always be that niche market that ponies up 3 mil plus for a 59 cig. Out of all those Millennials that don't buy crap, there will always be a fraction of a fraction of them (and society as a whole) that will grow older and realize they do dig offshore powerboats and will want to spend their billions from the tech industry on a toy like that. It's just simple statistics.

Also to the point that there isn't anyone on this thread buying a new Cigarette. I think you're right, but again you're using the wrong scale. Unfortunately OSO isn't what it used to be and those that have bought new Cigs over the past 10 years aren't on OSO for that vast part. They may drop in real quick or lurk from time to time. But you wont see Ruiz posting on here, Or Hans Peter Wild, or Lorenzo Fertitta, or the sultan of Johor to name a few. Most people plopping down 800-3.5 mil for a boat aren't usually BS'n on OSO.

In the end, I think your scope of things is a bit narrow. Cigarette is a global company that isn't reliant on just US sales. You sell boats to people on the level listed about, you aint worried about what Millennials are doing. But I do think the new owners are trying to capitalize on Cigarette as a global brand and make it more like HD in that it's recognized by EVERYONE. You don't need to sell HD numbers to have that type of brand recognition (as stated before, super rare cars such as Lambo and Ferrari are known the world over but only owned by a fraction of society) and truly, if that is the goal of Ruiz, he sure has a fantastic foundation to start with.

the 4.5 billion includes the 2.5 in merchandise. They sell approximately 2 billion in cars and 2.5 is from ferrari branded stuff that isn't cars.

The cars drive the brand just like the boats drive Cigarette but the value of the brand is pretty amazing.

Knowing that a 22 year old is running it and seeing the recent job ads for cigarette I would not be purchasing a cigarette anytime soon, not that I could afford to, because the owner doesn't know anything about building boats and 80% of all mergers and acquisitions are a failure even when the buyer's are competitors and know what they are doing. They are a failure because of culture and how the employee culture changes, often in a negative way. So put yourself in the shoes of the workers and then ask yourself if you think culture has improved after the workers were asked to work for someone who doesn't know anything about boats. Do you think the workers trust in management will increase or decrease? Do you think managements trust in equity will increase or decrease? And would you now risk the money on a new cigarette? I sure wouldn't.

This was my exact point on "clients aging out"........I clearly wasn't trying to compare an 883 Sportster to a 38 TG as competing products but at some point the past clients move on from this line of offerings to something that better complements their lifestyle.

Tank, not comparing the actual products but rather pointing out that both companies are facing their core clients aging out of the product offerings.


Think about a buyer of a new 80's Cigarette as a 40 yr old guy...........1985 the buyer is 40, 2022 that same buyer is 77! Not too many 77 yr olds are going to be ordering a new Cig (or Harley for that matter). Yes the guy might have been a diehard Cig guy for decades but that actual guy isn't ordering another new boat from Cig.


I get that it is a global market but that can be a two sided sword, certain countries won't allow the boats unless European Certified (662 motors vs. 700s type thing). Some places fuel is ridiculously expensive making this style of boating really expensive. There was a thread on here about someone wanting a go fast in the Maldives, that literally is in the middle of nowhere! Yes, billionaire types can run the boats in Alaska off their support vessels but honestly "go fast" and yachts are a pretty rare combination. Add in the lack of serviceability and suddenly I/O Merc stuff is more trouble than it's worth.


You mention a group of car companies, Aston Martin, Porsche, Lamborghini are selling more SUV's now than 2 seaters. Their clients were aging out, wanted to own the brand/ wanted the same performance in a more comfortable/usable package and they responded by building SUVs. Ruiz could certainly see this because he has owned the boats for years, but not sure his 22 yr old CEO is going to notice the trend.

Math disagrees with you.
4.5B in sales/10,000 units = 450K average price of cars sold (very believable average especially considering the options get pricey).
2B sale/ 10,000 units = 200K average price of cars sold..........this is impossible since the cheapest car offered is 222K (base MSRP, no options).

The closest I could find was 1.5B in merchandise but not sure how much of that is tied to F1 apparel/stuff (not that it matters to the bottom line)Ferrari has become such an international brand and global symbol of wealth and prestige, that marketing and merchandising the company’s name and logo has turned into big business. Each year, Ferrari sells about $1.5 billion of merchandise at retail outlets worldwide.

Designed and manufactured at 30 offices worldwide, Ferrari merchandise includes clothing, watches, sunglasses, shoes, mobile phone covers, and, of course, scale models of the cars. A lot of this merchandise is anything but cheap. A model of the coveted Ferrari F14T at 1:8 scale costs $5,400. Ferrari sunglasses retail for more than $200. It all adds up and helps to make Ferrari one of the most valuable automotive companies in the world.

dude, give it up... you hate cig and always have.. you jump on any chance to bash them. stop bashing what you cant afford. even by using your idiotic logic with the 40/77 year old, he is selling his cig and buying a new 700k plus center console. then with the new business model, the new owner of the used model may or may not use cig to do work on the older model... as usual all your logic is flawed.

I guess what I was trying to say is repeat customers are nice and CIg has a lot. But CIg is over 50 years old and new customers keep coming along. They're niche enough that there is a customer base out there of new customers. They're not relying on selling just to their repeat customers. I see what you're saying but it hasn't been a problem for 50 years and I don't see it being a problem in the future. Old buyers go, new buyers come. Generalized Millennials not buying won't be a problem.