How Pershing Yachts Has Evolved Over the Past 40 Years

Forty years ago, Pershing delivered its first vessel, the Pershing 45. Designed by Fulvio De Simoni, the launch blended aggressive styling and high-performance engineering with what were then advanced features such as hydraulic gangways and radar arches. Its speed, curves, and pizzazz, without being tacky, were so different from anything else on the water that the first hull was sold outside Italy, reportedly to a former New York governor who kept the Italian stallion incognito, outside the view of tax-payers. Beyond its sleek exterior, the 45-footer’s swanky interior and ability to pass 60 mph became the launchpad for Pershing’s reputation as a leader in luxury sport yachts. It’s a reputation that would evolve with ever-more ambitious models over the next two decades.

The company started with very humble beginnings. Founders Tilli Antonelli, Fausto Filippetti, and Giuliano Onori gave their start-up the inauspicious name, Cantiere Navale dell’Adriatico (which translates to “Shipyard of the Adriatic”), and the initial work involved repairing wooden boats. It wasn’t until the trio crossed paths with naval architect De Simoni that Pershing started to challenge yachting’s norm for speed and style.  

“Sometimes founding a brand is a matter of being at the right place at the right time, and for Pershing’s three founders, their encounter with architect De Simoni was exactly that,” Nada Serafini, head of sales for Pershing Yachts, told Robb Report during the brand’s recent 40th anniversary celebrations in Mondolfo, Italy.

The founders first decided that the name didn’t work for an international brand. The team took the very un-Italian approach of calling the fledgling shipyard after John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, the American general who had a heavy World War II tank named in his honor. Unlike other Italian brands such as Riva or Azimut, which were all about style, the name “Pershing” conveyed a fast, rugged oceangoing vessel designed to handle the most adverse conditions.

The success of the Pershing 45 would go on to define future models, as well as giving the Italian builder an entry into the international yacht market. The 45 was followed by the Pershing 70, a radical model fitted with a 5,000 hp gas turbine that gave it a blistering top speed of 63.3 mph, a feat of technology for that size of vessel in the early 1990s.

The expansion continued after Pershing’s 1998 acquisition by the Ferretti Group—“a company whose reputation and build quality Pershing had always wanted to emulate,” says Serafini—which strengthened Pershing’s presence in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. The new ownership piloted the 2004 launch of the Pershing 50, which proved popular with speed enthusiasts who also wanted comfort and style. It remains the brand’s bestselling model, with 105 units sold to date.

With Antonelli in charge of the shipyard, Pershing’s focus turned to larger, faster vessels that carried a technical edge. The brand pioneered the use of water jets connected to gas turbines on the Pershing 115 in 2004 and introduced triple-engine propulsion on the Pershing 108 in 2011. Pairing these innovations with a luxury aesthetic placed the brand in a league of its own among superyacht brands. Even the handful of builders of large high-performance vessels were more concerned with speed than the go-fast, luxury cocktail that Pershing offered. Always the innovator and risk-taker, Antonelli also insisted on gee-whiz features like helm stations replicating fighter-jet cockpits, carbon-fiber hull construction long before it was the norm, and joystick steering to enhance the owner’s control. The line quickly evolved into a tightly knit collection of curated designs that was heavily customized by a group of loyal owners, while the Mondolfo headquarters became a state-of-the-art production facility.

The Italian builder has recently undergone a dramatic pivot because of evolving trends among luxury yacht buyers. “The launch of our GTX range reframed the entire Pershing sales pitch, moving away from speed as the core element and towards more family-friendly yachting,” Alessandro Tirelli, Ferretti Group sales and marketing director, told Robb Report. The slower Volvo-Penta IPS–powered GTX series may have caused some Pershing purists to shake their head in disbelief, but its Generation X range retains the brand’s performance heritage.

Robb Report experienced both offerings firsthand from Fano to Ancona aboard the new X8 (which satisfies speed demons as we hit 53 mph during the 40-minute shakedown cruise) and, later, on the GTX 70. At a length of 70 feet, the GTX 70 is the smallest in the GTX range (which also includes the GTX 116 and GTX 80), but it also enjoys details derived from the superyacht world that enhances its onboard livability. These include fold-down aft bulwarks that enlarge the beach club area when at anchor (a feature first seen on the GTX 80) and a vertically sliding glass partition that separates the aft deck seating area from the interior bar and galley. The idea is to better connect the rear of the vessel with the outdoors.

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Four decades later, De Simoni is still the glue that holds the Pershing brand together. Having been the primary designer over the years, he is the only one who can connect the future with its past. The GTX 70’s sport-luxe interior design, for instance, combines leather wall paneling, lacquered finishes, and carbon-fiber accents with an open-plan main salon and large panoramic windows. The main deck, the focus of Pershing’s innovation for the GTX series, extends across two levels, the first designed for contact with the sea and the second for socializing and fast cruising. Owner customization includes fabrics, finishes, and lighting, while the IPS Volvo 1200 propulsion system allows for intuitive handling, especially when the owner is also the boat’s captain.

While the aerodynamic and aggressive lines of the early Pershing models remain a mainstay (the Generation X series features wide and muscular air intakes borrowed from racing cars), Pershing has also trended larger over the years.

The epitome of a Pershing superyacht is its 140, its largest model to date. Launched in 2019, the all-aluminum build differentiates itself in many other ways from other 100-foot-plus Pershings while retaining its aggressive, performance hull shape. Its distinctive features include a raised wheelhouse connected directly to the sun deck, a dedicated owner’s area on the main deck, and a beach area that opens on three sides. This last is a key design feature that includes integrated side wings that streamline air flow for efficiency, offers guest protection in the cockpit at high speeds, and reinforces the brand’s sporty DNA.

“The evolution of our yachts reflects the evolution of our owners’ tastes and the fact they want their yachts to feel more like home,” says Serafini. “When someone buys a Lamborghini, they want to drive the Lamborghini. When an owner buys a Pershing, they want to handle it themselves and feel all the emotions and control. That’s the point from where our design starts.”

Or rather, that’s the point where De Simoni’s next Pershing design begins.