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Buehler Turbo Craft – Rennaissance

April 20, 2021
Boating

Accueil » Blog » Boating » Buehler Turbo Craft – Rennaissance

Launched at the end of the 1950s, the Turbocraft brand was the first to market the revolutionary waterjet propulsion system: instant acceleration, unequalled manoeuvrability and the lines signed by great designers caused an immediate sensation.

To prove its unrivalled performance, several boats were sent up the mighty rapids of the Colorado River in August 1960, an incredible journey detailed in a 1962 National Geographic article entitled “Nine Against the River”.

During the 1960s the brand quickly became popular and synonymous with modernity and innovation. Having acquired the status of a leading brand offering a high quality product, Turbocraft has an exclusive and famous clientele such as the Kennedy family who owned it for water-skiing and the American secret service because of its performance and its ease of maintenance and use of Turbocraft. In 1962 Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the USSR, ordered a copy which was never delivered after the Cuban crisis broke out in October 1962

Even James Bond could not resist Turbocraft’s seductive cocktail of technological innovation and distinctive elegance. In the 1965 film ‘Thunderball’ starring Sean Connery, a Turbocraft boat is featured in many scenes with James Bond and the delightful Bond girl ‘Domino’ Derval. Following the success of the film, Turbocraft renamed its model Thunderball.

The mix of radical innovation and distinctive elegance appealed to a wide range of customers for three decades. The distinctive lines of the boats designed by Virgil Exner and their use by government agencies such as the CIA captivated many. An iconic brand was born.

Today TURBOCRAFT is reborn with an innovative and more eco-friendly model, SILVERFIN, for which the brand has received a prize and an innovation grant from the canton of Vaud.