Performance Boats Magazine Renamed Speedboat

Founded in 2007, Performance Boats Magazine, its digital version and its supporting website have a new home—speedboat.com. Although a name change to Speedboat Magazine is inevitable, the magazine is keeping the Performance Boats Magazine title and planning to add a Speedboat section within the current format.

Go-fast powerboat enthusiasts with long memories will recall Speedboat magazine from its short-lived introduction in 2005 when it was owned, along with Boating magazine by Hachette Filipacchi Media, at the time one of the largest magazine publishers in the world. According to its own press release, Hachette sold Boating to Bonnier Corp. in 2009. The Speedboat name reportedly went with the deal, and Chris Davidson, the founder and publisher of Performance Boats, acquired the name. In September 2013, a Nevada-based investment group acquired Performance Boats magazine. (Read the story.)

According to a recently posted press release on the redesigned Speedboat website, Performance Boats was “never the first choice” for the name of the publication Davidson started after his long and successful tenure as the publisher of Hot Boat magazine, which ceased publication not long after his departure.

“Our No. 1 choice was Speed Boat Magazine with the URL speedboat.com—short, sweet and simple,” said the release. “However, for various branding and legal reasons, that name was unusable. But times have changed, so we are now officially changing our website over to speedboat.com.

“We’re also revising our model,” the release continued. “After revolutionizing the go-fast boating magazine industry with Hot Boat and Performance Boats, we’re about to become the premier website focused on speed. Speedboat.com will be the quintessential site for V-drives, jetboats, flat-bottoms, drag boats and more.”

Related story: Investment Group Acquires Performance Boats Magazine