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Ball Watch this week combines its well-known dial illumination and solid crown protector with a racing tachymeter to create the Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph, the brand’s first automotive racing watch in years.

The new Ball Watch Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph

While Ball has long focused on designing watches with functions requested by explorers, divers, travelers and adventurers, the historical U.S. brand (now based in Switzerland) now seeks to reach automobile racing enthusiasts with this new chronograph collection. Ball Watch has offered other watches with tachymeters in years past, including the Engineer Master II Slide Chronograph and two Fireman Storm Chaser models, but this debut is the first in recent years specifically designed with such a bezel.  

For Ball, adding a speed-monitoring tachymeter scale (here, in black ceramic) to the bezel of a chronograph is just a start. The remaining features Ball adds to the three-watch collection echo the brand’s attention to the needs of collectors who plan to wear their watch amid adverse conditions.

Ball Watch Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph, showing illumination.

Shock resistance

These features include a COSC-certified, chronometer-rated automatic movement (Ball’s Caliber RR1401, an upgraded and customized ETA Valjoux 7750), resistance to shocks of up to 7,500 g and anti-magnetic protection rated to 4,800 A/m.

That Ball crown protector (left), standard on the watches throughout the Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon collection, screws into the case once the owner sets the time on the watch. After the wearer clasps the patented steel protector over the crown, it won’t budge or allow dust or dirt to contamination the case interior.  

And as noted, Ball’s proprietary H3 gas tube illumination (colored green on the dial and hands and yellow at 12 o’clock) means that the time – and the timing – remains visible day or night. 

Three dials

Ball makes the new Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph with a 42mm diameter stainless steel case with a black ceramic bezel and a choice of a black, blue or white dial.

Ball then finishes the watch with a stainless-steel brushed and polished bracelet with a folding clasp. Price: $3,599.

 

SPECIFICATIONS: Ball Watch Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph

Movement: Automatic caliber BALL RR1401-C (ETA-7750-based), chronometer-certified COSC,

7,500Gs shock resistance, 100-meters of water resistance, anti-magnetic to 4,800 A/m

Functions: Chronograph with accumulated measurement up to 45 minutes, tachymeter, hours, minutes, subsidiary seconds and date

Dial: Blue, silver or black with 15 micro gas tubes on hour and minute hands and dial for night reading capability

Case: 42mm by 15.2mm stainless steel with black ceramic bezel, anti-reflective sapphire crystal, patented crown protection system

Bracelet: Tapered stainless steel with patented folding buckle and extension system

Price: $3,599

 

The new Ball Watch Company Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps is actually a series of steel-cased 40mm or 43mm three-hand watches or GMT steel watches, also made in two sizes (40mm or 44mm). And while all the watches are designed to fit within Ball’s Engineer collection, this new iteration salutes the 245th Anniversary of the U.S. Marines with the Marine Corps emblem on the dial of each model.

The Ball Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps Power Reserve GMT.

Every watch of course features Ball’s well-known always-lit micro gas tubes on the markers and hands for high legibility in darkness. Within the tubes, molecules of H3 gas emit luminous energy for at least twenty-five years without ever needing any input from an external source of light or energy.

Ball 36 micro-gas tubes light up the dial of the Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps Power Reserve GMT, available in 40mm or 44mm sizes.

The GMT Model, which also features a power reserve indictor on the dial, displays its dual time subdial at 12 o’clock and its 42-hour power reserve indicator at 6 o’clock. The watch is water resistant to 100 meters thanks to its screw-down crown and is anti-magnetic to 4,800A/m. As an online exclusive, the Ball Watch Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps Power Reserve GMT is limited to 1,000 pieces, each priced at $1,549.

The Ball Watch Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps, with steel TiC-coated black case.
The solid, engraved caseback of the Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps boasts about its strong anti-magnetic properties.
The Ball Watch Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps, showing steel case and bracelet.

With all- black titanium carbide-coated 43mm cases and black rubber straps ($1,699, or $1,499 for the 40mm model w/steel bracelets), the three-hand models are more contemporary in style. Ball’s own Mu-metal shielding protects the automatic movement from magnetic fields up to 80,000A/m. This Ball Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps watch is also water resistant up to 100 meters, thanks to its screw-down crown.

 

Specifications: Ball Watch Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps
Automatic ETA-based Ball caliber RR1103
15 micro gas tubes for night reading capability
Hours, minutes, sweep seconds and magnified date
Dimensions: 40mm
Anti-magnetic to 80,000A/m
Water resistant to 100m / 330ft
Stainless steel or stainless steel with TiC coating case
Anti-reflective sapphire crystal
Screw-down crown
Black dial, stainless steel bracelet or rubber strap
Limited edition of 1,000: Price: $1,499, or $1,279 with pre-order discount.
Additional NATO, rubber and leather straps available

Ball Watch Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps, Black case
Automatic ETA-based Ball caliber RR1103
15 micro gas tubes for night reading capability
Hours, minutes, sweep seconds and magnified date
Dimensions: 43mm
Anti-magnetic to 80,000A/m
Water resistant to 100m / 330ft
Stainless steel or stainless steel with TiC coating case
Anti-reflective sapphire crystal
Screw-down crown
Black dial, stainless steel bracelet or rubber strap
Limited edition: Price: $1,649 or $1,399 with pre-order discount.
Additional NATO, rubber and leather straps available

Ball Watch Engineer II U.S. Marine Corps Power Reserve GMT

Automatic ETA-based Ball caliber RR1302
36 micro gas tubes for night reading capability
Dual Time display
42 hours power reserve indicator
Hours, minutes, sweep seconds and date
Dimensions: 40mm or 44 mm
Anti-magnetic to 4,800A/m
Water resistant to 100m / 330ft
Stainless steel case
Anti-reflective sapphire crystal
Sapphire crystal transparent case back
Screw-down crown
Black dial, stainless steel bracelet
Limited edition: Price: $1,549
Additional NATO, rubber and leather straps available

 

 

 

    Ball Watch earlier this year announced that it released its Engineer Hydrocarbon Original ($3,199) in a special fifteenth Anniversary edition that sports larger H3 gas microcapsules – for the first time under the dial – and three of Ball’s patented anti-shock systems, namely the Amortiser, SpringLOCK and SpringSEAL.

For the 15th Anniversary Ball Engineer
Hydrocarbon Original Ball for the first time
places extra-wide tritium self-powered
luminescent tubes underneath the dial,
flooding the ‘hour holes’ with light.

      For this anniversary model, Ball places its micro-gas tubes on hands and utilizes those larger tubes under – not on top of – the dial on the hour apertures. This changes the look of the Hydrocarbon dial considerably.

Nighttime view of the new Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon Original dial.

    The 40mm steel watch is fitted with a graduated and notched unidirectional bezel and is water-resistant to 200 meters (660 feet). Powered by a COSC-certified BALL RR1102-CSL automatic caliber, the watch also displays the day and date functions on its black dial.

The solid caseback, showing diver engraving.

Like all watches in the Hydrocarbon Collection, Ball protects its crown with a protection valve to insure that it’s securely bolted down and inaccessible while diving. And, true to its name, the Engineer Hydrocarbon Original is made to be shock resistant to 7,500 Gs and anti-magnetic to 80,000 A/m, thanks to mu-metal magnetic shielding.

Ball secures the crown with its own patented protector.

 

SPECIFICATIONS: Ball Watch 15th Anniversary Engineer Hydrocarbon Original

Movement: Automatic caliber BALL RR1102-CSL, COSC-chronometer certified with SpringLOCK

patented anti-shock system and SpringSEAL, patented regulator anti-shock system

Dial: Black with thirty micro gas tubes on hour, minute, and second hands, as well as under the dial (for the first time) and bezel; hours, minutes, sweep seconds, day and date

Case: 40mm x 14.55mm stainless steel, Mu-metal shield, unidirectional rotating curved sapphire bezel with micro gas tubes, Amortiser patented anti-shock system, anti-reflective sapphire crystal,

patented crown protection system, anti-magnetic to 80,000A/m, water resistant to 200 meters, shock resistant to 7,500Gs.

Bracelet: Tapered stainless steel with patented folding buckle and extension system

Price: $3,199