Three years ago we highlighted a newly-formed alliance between Bentley motor cars and Breitling watches. At the time, such a collaboration was rare; the only other high-end watch brand having an official link with a car maker was Girard Perregaux, with its “pour Ferrari” range.
Today, space is tight in the motoring watch “car park”, with numerous timepieces on offer that are either dedicated to a particular marque or inspired by the world of automobiles.
The mechanical wristwatch holds inevitable appeal to lovers of exclusive motor cars, both because it shows an appreciation of superlative engineering and, of course, because it enables them to carry the prestige of an Aston Martin, a Bentley or a Maserati on their wrist, while the car itself might be sitting in the garage – or even, for that matter, when they don’t actually own one.
As James Gurney, editor of QP, Britain’s leading specialist watch magazine, observes: “As a means of display, the wristwatch can work in a far more nuanced and selective manner than the car it is designed to match.
Quite apart from the fact that it is worn on the wrist and therefore available for permanent display, the wearer can choose precisely what to display and to whom.
‘Panerai itself comes from the world of the sea; the Ferrari watch comes from the world of the GT car. The philosophy of quality, remains the same’
“While everyone might recognise a jewelled Rolex, the distinctive oval case of, say, an Audemars Piguet Millenary Maserati speaks to a far more select audience,” says Mr Gurney.
In order to reflect one another’s excellence, the top motor manufacturers understandably become bedfellows with the better watch brands. This means the price of the timepiece can, occasionally, be almost as high as the price of the car.
There are also plenty of less well-heeled buyers out there who simply want a watch that says “petrolhead” without necessarily showing their allegiance to a specific marque.
For them, the choice is even wider, with watches on offer which allude to historic motoring events, modern-day races, Formula One teams and even favourite drivers.
In either sphere, one of the most remarkable car watch success stories must be that of Breitling, the first brand to capitalise on the potential of linking with a carmaker of similar repute in the luxury marketplace.
The Breitling for Bentley range now extends to no fewer than seven models following the addition of the ‘Flying B’ and ‘Mark VI’ variants at this year’s Baselworld watch fair.
The collection – priced from £3,500 to £100,000 – takes design cues from the cars, be it a dashboard-inspired dial or a wheel-shaped case back, with the Mark VI dedicated to the first Bentley model built at Crewe after production moved there in 1946.
The Flying B model – named after the Bentley bonnet mascot – is both the first rectangular-cased watch the maker has made and the first with a jumping hour display instead of a conventional dial.
The really big news in the car-watch world this season, however, is the announcement of a partnership between the two Italian brands Officine Panerai and Ferrari.
The watchmaker, best known for its military-inspired diving watches, has entered into a long-term agreement with the maker of supercars to produce two families named Scuderia and Granturismo costing between €5,000 and €12,000.
Variously available as a simple automatic watch, a chronograph, a split seconds chronograph and a GMT model fitted with Panerai’s recently introduced inhouse movement, each carries the Ferrari name on the dial and bears the legend “Officine Panerai Engineered for Ferrari” engraved on the back of the imposing, 45mm case.
“I was very particular about wanting this to be a watch engineered by Panerai for Ferrari – that way we have two distinct brands,” says Panerai president Angelo Bonati.
“Panerai itself comes from the world of the sea; the Ferrari watch comes from the world of the GT car. The philosophy of quality, remains the same.”
Audemars Piguet, meanwhile, rolled a stunning new Maserati timepiece out of its car watch garage at this year’s SIHH show in Geneva in the form of the Millenary MC12 tourbillon and chronograph.
This has an oval case hewn from platinum and an openwork dial to show off the extra-ordinarily complicated movement which is said to have been inspired by the MC12 racing car’s 700 horsepower, V12 engine.
Just 150 examples will be made at a price of £163,000 – small beer to anyone who can afford the £450,000 it costs to buy a road-going version of an MC12 car.
TAG-Heuer, too, is continuing its association with Mercedes-Benz with production of the cushion-shaped, €10,000 McLaren SLR watch which is being made available only to buyers of the €375,000 supercar after which it is named.
However, TAG has received so many requests from less well-heeled buyers for an SLR watch that it has now introduced a round SLR for Mercedes-Benz model priced at £2,495.
Just 3,500 of these will be made and they feature a 45mm case with chronograph push pieces which are ergonomically inclined at 45 degrees to make them easier to use.
Owners of performance-enhanced Mercedes-Benz AMG cars must turn to IWC for their watches, however. The Schaffhausen-based brand introduced special AMG versions of its reborn Ingenieur watch in 2005. Meanwhile, Jaeger LeCoultre is continuing its partnership with Aston Martin, having recently placed the Amvox 2 on sale.
This revolutionary chronograph is started, stopped and reset simply by pressing the watch crystal in much the same way as the driver of an Aston Martin Vantage fires up its V8 engine by prodding a glass dashboard button marked “start”.
But as well as merely emulating the features of an automobile, watch makers have also started to draw on state-of-the-art car building technology by using materials from the world of F1 racing in the construction of their timepieces.
Richard Mille calls his watches “racing machines for the wrist” and created his RM series with the same goals of lightness and strength that are paramount in the building of a Grand Prix car.
Mr Mille’s limited edition RM 005 dedicated to the driver Felipe Massa is, perhaps, the ultimate expression of a car watch. “Everything has been constructed in the manner of the analytical engineering methods used in Formula One, where the engine and chassis are developed in complete harmony,” says Mr Mille.
In similar vein, Audemars Piguet’s latest, £15,000 version of its legendary Royal Oak luxury sports watch, the Rubens Barrichello titanium chronograph, is brist-ling with racing car imagery. The bezel is based on a vented brake disc, the crown shaped like a gear wheel and the pushpieces are modelled on air extractors.
If your budget is limited, however, there are plenty of less expensive ways of displaying a mania for motoring on your wrist.
TAG-Heuer’s Carrera Tachymetre Racing – named after the famous Carrera Pan Americana car race – contains a quality mechanical movement at a sub-£2,000 price.
Chopard’s Mille Miglia watch, the Gran Turismo XL comes on a distinctive tyre tread strap from £2,290.
Dunhill has enhanced its Wheel Watch range with a £1,850 chronograph version and Seiko this week announced continued sponsorship of the F1 Honda Racing team with a new range of Sportura chronographs priced from £350 to £3,500.
But if you believe there is no substitute for cubic capacity in either cars or watches, you might have to check out the extraordinary creations of car and motorcycle-mad watchmaker Bernard Richards.
His fledgling BRM brand has produced a model called the MT which is designed to look just like a V-8 car engine block – and, at a wrist-filling 51mm by 49mm, it seems almost as big.
