Cigarette Boats for Sale

From Aronow to today

The company's own history says the 1980s brought the Firefox, Top Gun and Cafe Racer, and that Miami Vice, which aired from 1984 to 1990, made the name famous. Aronow was shot and killed on 188th Street in 1987. In the 1990s Cigarette added models like the 46 Rough Rider, 42 Revolution and 42 Tiger. Around 2000 Skip Braver bought the company with a plan to rebuild it around performance and luxury.

The 41 Nighthawk

The Nighthawk is the center console most buyers ask about. Cigarette lists it at 41 feet with an 11-foot beam, 20 degrees of deadrise, a 350-gallon fuel tank and up to 2,000 hp, with four Mercury 400R V10s or four 500Rs. The 2024 to 2025 brochure gives the overall length with the engines as 45 feet 3 inches and a 25-gallon water tank. It describes a twin-step hull and a carbon hardtop, and a cabin with more than 6 feet of headroom.

Car and Driver rode in the 2020 one-off AMG Black Series version, which had five supercharged Mercury V-8 outboards for 2,250 hp. It reported a hull weight of 15,600 pounds, about 1 mile per gallon around 50 mph, and a top speed near 90. Cigarette's president, Erik Christiansen, came to the company from Mercury Racing, which helps explain the close Mercury tie-in.

What they cost

Boat Trader had 70 Cigarettes listed in fall 2026, 60 of them used. A 1991 35 Cafe Racer was $59,980 near Chicago. A 2000 38 Top Gun was $149,900 at Lake Ozark, Missouri, and a 2002 42 Tiger was $135,600 from a private seller in Connecticut. For Nighthawks, a 2015 SD Edition was $479,000 in Afton, Oklahoma, a 2022 was $739,900 in Kansas City, and a 2024 was $1.29 million in Kingston, Oklahoma.

Buying checks for a Cigarette

Get engine records from a race shop. Older Top Guns and Tigers usually run high-output sterndrive engines that need regular rebuilds. Ask for dyno sheets and rebuild receipts, and have a performance-engine specialist inspect them.

Inspect the drives and transom. Big power puts a lot of load on drives, transom plates and steering. Look for cracks around the mounts.

Confirm the edition. Listings include special editions such as the SD Nighthawk and the AMG collaborations, and they ask more. Get the hull ID and the builder's paperwork to prove what the boat is.

Know the generation. A 2018 42X listed at $789,000 in Tennessee, and a new 59 Tirranna was offered at $4.7 million. Don't compare a modern outboard boat with a 1990s sterndrive boat on price alone.

Plan for the fuel bill. Even at cruise these burn a lot of fuel. Car and Driver's 1 mpg at 50 mph was on the most efficient setup.