FACTFILE: JOHN STALUPPI
LIVES: FLORIDA AND NEW YORK
CHILDREN: MARIA, JENNIFER, JOHN JR AND NINE GRANDCHILDREN
SPOUSE: JEANETTE
BOATS IN BUILD: 82M BILGIN FLAGSHIP, AB YACHTS 95

Calling John Staluppi a boat owner is a little like describing Feadship as a boatbuilder. That is to say, it represents such epic understatement as to be pretty useless as a description. This American entrepreneur is embarking on the build of what will be his 21st yacht – a sumptuous new 82-metre from Bilgin Yachts.

It will also be the last yacht he ever owns, he says. “I’m going to be 80 years old next year – thank God I’m in great health. By the time I get the boat, I’ll be 82 and I want to travel around the world. I want to sit back and enjoy my life and my family.”

It’s going to be quite a journey to get there, however. For Bilgin, it is the largest yacht they’ve ever built, following on the heels of their awardwinning 80-metre series. It is a massively ambitious project, featuring an entire owner’s deck, a full-beam VIP cabin at main deck level and five extremely comfortable guest cabins.

The owner’s suite has his-and-hers bathrooms and a private lounge area, while there is also a dedicated cinema, full spa and beauty salon, with a pool in the beach club.

Staluppi chose the Turkish yard specifically because it has committed to genuine flexibility in meeting his exacting requirements. “The shipyard is more motivated to make changes to its standard, without telling me it can’t be done,” he explains. “In my life, if I had thought things were impossible, I would still be in a 42-foot [13-metre] ocean fishing boat! I don’t believe in impossible.”

“I want a boat that can have everything, so guests don’t get insulted that the stateroom isn’t big enough or they don’t have his-and-hers bathrooms”

His wish list is long and built on 40 years of yachting experience. “I tracked what I did wrong in the last boat, and the one before that. My wife, Jeanette, has a lot of input in the interiors and the things that she wants. It will be a world yacht – you can plug it in any place in the world – you’ll be able to plug this boat into your garage if you want! If they don’t have enough power on the dock, you’re going to be able to run multiple shore power cables via splitters.”

The interior scheme is being led by H2 Yacht Design, but the couple is into the detail to a remarkable degree, wanting to pull thermostats for the air con out of cupboards, for instance, and lavatory flushes out from behind the seats – so that guests can actually find them. “Designers always want to hide these things,” he says. “But I don’t want a call at 2.00am saying, ‘My cabin is freezing.

He has also learned over the years that it’s important to make sure every guest has a similarly luxurious cabin, so there’s no jostling or complaining. “I want a boat that can have everything,” Staluppi says. “So, when you have guests, no one gets insulted that the stateroom isn’t big enough, or they don’t have his-and-hers bathrooms.” He pauses for a moment, before quite reasonably adding: “Although guests are guests, and they should just be happy to be invited!”

The Bilgin is codenamed Project Bond, and almost every one of Staluppi’s previous yachts carried the name of a 007 film, including Octopussy and The World is Not Enough. But with the recent sale of the Bond franchise to Amazon, the wait for the next instalment has been lengthened to 2027 at the earliest.

“I was hoping there would be a new movie in time to name the boat, but if it doesn’t come out, I’ll go back to an old name: For Your Eyes Only,” he says. “James Bond is probably the most exciting movies and characters I’ve ever experienced – you never know what’s next – all those trick cars and gadgets. That’s why I always named the boats after them.

In name, then, the boat represents continuity in the Staluppi yacht franchise, but in other respects, less so. For instance, the 82-metre Bilgin, built with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure, will top out at 17.5 knots. That’s not slow for such a large yacht, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Staluppi’s previous boats. Back in 1988, his first big boat was a semicustom Heesen 42-metre called Octopussy, which famously clocked up more than 50 knots.

“Heesen was my favourite of all the yards, because they were very flexible and were the only ones who took up the speed challenge,” he remembers. The contract specified a financial penalty for every 10th of a knot below 50 that the boat could manage, with the option to walk away if it couldn’t exceed 48 knots.

In the end, with design input from Frank Mulder, Octopussy hit 53 knots and earned the build team a bonus in the process. “Some of the shipyards thought we were nuts when I told them how fast we wanted to go, and we met with the best of the best,” Staluppi says with relish.

With his seemingly boundless passion for yachts, he set up his own brand in 1998. Called Millennium Super Yachts, it aimed to leverage the Staluppi name and his reputation for lavish, fast boats. Designs were based on the string of yachts that he had himself commissioned from Mulder and ranged from 23 to 50 metres in length. “We built more than 20 yachts and the business was profitable,” he says.

Millennium’s high-water mark came in 2004, when Staluppi started building a 70-knot beast of a boat that measured 42.4 metres. Called The World is Not Enough, the boat was as terrifying as it was exhilarating with 20,000-horsepower of diesel engine and jet turbine-driving Lips waterjets.

“At 68 knots, it was straight as an arrow,” says Staluppi. “Then, with a little extra throttle, it was always spinning out like a WaveRunner jet ski. It was like sliding down ice on the road – you had no control and it felt like it was going to flip over.”

Just short of full speed, there was still much fun to be had. “There would be a guy with a 35-foot sportfish with four engines doing 50 knots and you’d come past him, waving, with a martini in your hand,” he says gleefully. “They didn’t like that!”

He’s not completely stepping away from the thrill of speed: he’s also building a 29-metre with AB Yachts that will turn 6,000 horsepower into 50 knots. “I’m going to call it my giant tender,” he explains. “If I want to go in for dinner, I can go in like a gentleman; I know I won’t get bounced about!”

A lifetime of yachting has left Staluppi with a deep fund of anecdotes. He recounts an episode from a trip long ago to the Bahamas in a smaller boat. “We pulled into the marina one time and I’m sitting on the aft deck. This group of guys comes by and calls out to me, saying they were personal friends of John Staluppi.

‘Oh, so you know John Staluppi?’ I ask them. They nod, then they ask to come on board. Of course, I don’t let them on and they start yelling, ‘If Staluppi knew it was me out here, he would fire the captain!’ I had a quiet laugh about that one.”

Another time, a group of male guests came on board with some lady friends. “They left their pocketbooks on the caprail to take their shoes off,” he says. “When they turned round, the pocketbooks were gone. The girls accused my crew of stealing them. When we reran the cameras, you could see them falling over the side. I said, ‘Ma’am, my crew doesn’t need your pocketbook’.”

Staluppi’s wealth may have enabled him to retain excellent crew over the years, but he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Engines and raw power have been one great staple of his life, ever since he started work as a mechanic, aged 16, in his native Brooklyn.

He leapt at the chance when his boss asked him to come in on a new venture selling Honda motorcycles at a time in the mid-1970s when the Japanese brand was a by-word for performance and innovation. Full of enthusiasm and genuine knowledge, he sold well. So, when Honda launched a range of cars in the US, Staluppi started to sell those too. “Everyone wanted a Honda, so we made a lot of money.”

In just 10 years, he had built an automotive empire, with 40 dealerships spanning the US from coast to coast. It wasn’t just Honda – there was Nissan, Hyundai, Jeep and Chevrolet as well. By 1984, his newly founded Atlantic Auto Group was selling 55,000 cars a year, employing 6,000 people.

“When you’re selling a lot of cars, you get a good reputation. Finance companies would come to us with a dealer they wanted us to buy out, because they were doing a terrible job. They would put the money up and we just grew. We learned over the years to take care of the customers and make them feel good. Maybe we were charging a little less, but by the same token, we’d get the right places.”

Cars are still at the heart of Staluppi’s fortune, but now his children have taken over the business. He also runs the Cars of Dreams museum, where his personal collection is on display. The museum is based in Florida, although it aims to recreate some of the sights and sounds of Coney Island, showcasing gems from a 2008 Aston Martin Vantage convertible to a 1948 open-top Cadillac.

Staluppi’s yacht collection may not be housed under one roof, but it is just as impressive. It represents a legacy of raw power trimmed with exceptional interior comfort across a range of boats that is surely unequalled even by the standards of the superyacht world.

The Bilgin flagship will be Staluppi’s crowning glory. “At this point in my life, I just want to build my favourite boat,” he says. “Building a new boat is always a challenge – I’m very involved. But Project Bond is going to be the perfect yacht.”

First published in the July 2026 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.