Bellini has taken a very particular kind of obsession and turned it into a production boat, and the result is the Astor 38—born from a one-off commission for Italian-Monégasque racing driver Francesco Castellacci and now, somehow, available to people who don’t spend their weekends chasing apexes.
You can see exactly where this started. Castellacci, who races in the FIA World Endurance Championship with Vista AF Corse, didn’t want a typical weekend cruiser. He wanted something that felt like his Ferrari—sharp, reactive, slightly intense even when you’re doing very little. That’s a dangerous brief to hand to a yacht builder, because most boats, if we’re honest, are about as connected as a sofa.
Bellini leaned into it.
The original Astor 38 Pista was never meant to be a production thing. It was a bespoke toy, a translation exercise between two worlds that don’t usually overlap in any meaningful way. Cars chase milliseconds; boats chase sunsets. Yet here, someone decided they should meet in the middle, and oddly enough, it works.
Castellacci’s own boat is the loud one. Silver and red, proper racing livery, the sort of thing that looks like it should come with tyre warmers. There are graphics, signatures, little details that tie it directly back to his LMGT3 Evo car. It feels personal in the way proper driver cars do—slightly indulgent, completely unapologetic.
Step aboard and it gets even more obvious. The helm isn’t just influenced by a cockpit; it basically is one. You sit low, wrapped in shell seats trimmed in a pattern that nods to the old Daytona interiors. There’s carbon fibre where you expect it, flashes of red where you don’t need them but are glad they’re there, and even a hit of Giallo Modena on the windshield frame. That last bit feels like a wink.
Then Bellini looked at it and thought: yes, we should probably sell this.
So the Astor 38 arrives as a slightly toned-down version. Same shape, same intent, but with the volume knob turned down just enough. The production boat swaps the full racing livery for a more restrained silver finish, with subtle accents rather than shouting graphics. It still carries the attitude, just without announcing it from three marinas away.
The layout is what you’d expect from a modern walkaround, though it’s been done with a bit more care than usual. There’s an ergonomic cockpit that actually looks designed for someone who might drive it properly, not just lean on it with a drink. Below deck, a twin cabin sits aft, trimmed in a way that feels considered rather than decorative.
Outside, you get teak underfoot, fold-out platforms, and sunpads in all the usual places. It’s functional, but not dull. Someone clearly spent time thinking about how people actually move around a boat, which is more than can be said for quite a few in this size range.
Underneath, things get interesting again. The hull has been tuned for stability at speed, which matters when you’re trying to inject a bit of motorsport DNA into something that floats. Power comes from twin Volvo Penta setups—diesel or petrol—rated at 350 and 300 horsepower respectively.
With the petrol option, Bellini claims 32 knots flat out at one-third load. That’s properly brisk for something like this. Not terrifying, not outrageous, but enough to make you pay attention. And that’s the whole point, really.
Because what this boat tries to do—what it actually manages to do—is keep you involved. It doesn’t just move across water; it encourages you to drive it, to think about what you’re doing, to enjoy the process rather than just the destination. That’s a very un-boat-like quality.
The Astor 38 Pista, Castellacci’s original, will show up at the Cannes Yachting Festival in September, which feels like the right place for something this slightly eccentric. The production Astor 38 follows at the same time, though Bellini hasn’t said what it’ll cost yet. Probably not cheap. Definitely not the point.
What matters is that someone looked at the gap between cars and boats and decided it was worth bridging. And instead of building something compromised, they built something that leans fully into both worlds.
