For nearly a century, the Riva Historical Society has worked to preserve one of Italy’s most iconic contributions to boatbuilding: the mahogany-hulled runabouts that once carried golden-era movie stars and royalty across the lakes of northern Italy and the waters of the Mediterranean. The nonprofit, founded in 1998, is dedicated to conserving original Riva runabouts and serves as an official source of information on this historic and glamorous chapter in Italian watercraft design. Its combination of heritage, old-world craftsmanship, and pure aesthetic beauty, meanwhile, makes the Riva Historical Society a natural collaboration partner for Swiss watchmaker Frederique Constant. The latest product of this partnership, which began in 2013, is the new Classics Runabout Automatic GMT, a vintage-inspired watch with a modern manufacture movement.
The 2026 edition, the Classics Runabout Automatic GMT, is the collection’s most technically ambitious release yet. While past editions have drawn primarily on the Riva’s legacy of style, the new watch adds an in-house GMT complication, a boon for jet-setting watch collectors and fans of vintage boating alike. The watch comes in a 42mm case with a choice of two dials: deep blue or teak brown, colours that reference the blue of open water and the brown of varnished teak.
Both versions share a satin-finished dial with vertical striping meant to mirror the construction of a Riva runabout, where individual planks are hand-fitted to form the boat’s sundeck. Applied luminescent Arabic numerals, set in a subtly vintage typeface, sit alongside slender baton indexes, while a flush outer track counts off the seconds around the case edge. At the centre of the dial, three concentric circles make up the watch’s GMT display, with a 24-hour scale to track a second time zone. A luminescent, arrow-tipped hand marks the GMT reading, and a date window is set at 6 o’clock.
The new GMT calibre is built on Frederique Constant’s FC350 base movement, with a 38-hour power reserve, and is finished with vertical Côtes de Genève striping on the bridges and oscillating weight. The Riva Historical Society’s logo appears on the smoked sapphire caseback, and the watch is delivered in a presentation box alongside a miniature replica of a vintage Riva runabout. Limited to 888 pieces in each dial colour, they’re the closest most of us will come to owning a restored Riva runabout, and — fortunately for lovers of vintage Italian design — far more affordable.
Learn more about the Classics Runabout Automatic GMT.
