Tag

chronometer

Browsing
The Watches

Porsche Owners Get New Chronograph Options

New Porsche 911 GT3 RS owners can now complement their choice in sports cars with a matching Porsche Design 911 GT3 RS Chronograph, available only to owners of the newly debuted car.

The new Porsche Design 911 GT3 RS Chronograph.

The watch, offered with a natural titanium or blackened titanium finish, is built to echo the design of the car, with, for example, a matte black seconds disc at 9 o’clock embossed with white ‘911 GT3 RS’ lettering and a ‘BORN IN FLACHT’ imprint in the center, which references the Porsche Owners community of the same name.

More direct connections to the car can be seen on the back of the watch, where Porsche Design places a rotor with the same rim design as the lightweight magnesium forged wheel found on the 911 GT3 RS with the Weissach Package.

Buyers can choose from five colors, including Brilliant Silver, Neodyme, Black Satin, Dark Silver, Indigo Blue, and Pyro Red.

Porsche Design fits the watch  with a COSC-certified Porsche Design WERK 01.200 movement with flyback function, ideal for timing consecutive laps around the neighborhood. New here is the option to add a pulsometer scale or a minute display in place of a tachymeter on the bezel.

The buyer can also customize other exterior components, including the outer dial ring color, hand color, strap options and even add personalized engraving. Base price: $10,950.

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Nomos Tangente Aids Emergency Doctors

Each year Nomos creates a watch to benefit the Nobel-Prize-winning-organization Doctors Without Borders. This year’s model, the Tangente 38 – 50 ans de Médecins Sans Frontières, is limited to 2,021 units worldwide and highlights the medical rescue organization’s mission with a large red twelve on the dial.

The Nomos Tangente 38 – 50 ans de Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

Red is the universal color of emergency and has been the color of Doctors Without Borders for fifty years.

At the top of the dial, the twelve in red celebrates the color of Doctors Without Borders for half a century.

According to Nomos, the red twelve is also intended to “raise aid awareness, encouraging even more people to provide support. Helping has quite possibly never been more important than now and with this watch.”

To specifically mark the emergency medical aid organization’s fiftieth year, Nomos has also attached a dark gray textile strap to the watch and adds an inscription at six o’clock that reads “50 ans de Médecins Sans Frontières”. The same inscription can be found engraved onto the solid steel caseback.

The Tangente 38 is a classic for the Glashütte-based Nomos. A best seller for twenty-five years, the watch is the clearest example of the brand’s minimalist tenets. The watch is fit with a Nomos Alpha in-house manual-wind movement, which Nomos adjusts to chronometer standards.

Nomos will donate 100 euros to per unit sold directly and without deduction to Doctors Without Borders. At $2,030, the special edition is priced exactly the same as the existing Tangente 38 model.

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Norqain Adds an Automatic Skeleton

Independent Swiss watchmaker Norqain launches the Independence 22 Skeleton, a limited edition steel version of its black DLC model that quickly sold out last year.

The new Norqain Independence 22 Skeleton.

The newest version features a 42mm stainless steel case with brushed, polished and sandblasted finishing. But the real draw is how Norqain frames its ruthenium-colored, COSC-certified, Sellita-based caliber NN08S with exposed gears, wheels and bridges.

Each supporting bridge within the architecturally designed movement is held by at least two arms. This creates a particularly rigid movement, according to Norqain, which offers a “exceptional shock resistance and a high level of robustness.”

Under the Norqain-logo-printed sapphire crystal you’ll see two skeletonized hands and a red-tipped seconds hand. All are coated in top-quality white SuperLuminova.

Norqain says it will make 300 Independence 22 Skeleton watches, and will make additional pieces upon request.

Price: $3,990.

 

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Chopard Races with the 2022 Mille Miglia

As a partner and official timekeeper to the Mille Miglia classic car race since 1988, Chopard annually issues a new limited series chronograph inspired by the 1,000-mile tour through Italy (which just completed its fortieth run from Brescia to Rome and back).

The new Chopard Mille Miglia 2022 Race Edition, here in all-steel.

For 2022 Chopard launches two models. One is a steel-cased version made as a 1,000-piece limited edition, while the second is a 250-piece limited edition that features a rose gold crown, pushers and bezel.

The Chopard Mille Miglia 2022 Race Edition, with Ethical gold crown, pushers and bezel.

This year’s edition features a silver-grey dial with handsome light blue hands, hour-markers and bezel inlay (with tachymeter scale). Notable this year, in addition to the color scheme, is the larger date display and a distinctive use of differing of dial finishes to separate the chronograph functions from the day-to-day timekeeping display.

Chopard finishes the chronograph counters (at 6 and 12 o’clock) with a peripheral snailed pattern, which differs from the small seconds at 9 o’clock. These displays also feature red-tipped hands that echo one of the official Mille Miglia colors. The timekeeping hands are quite visible with their broad size, blue rim and a generous helping of luminous material.

Inside both models Chopard fits a COSC-chronometer-certified ETA-based automatic movement. To better utilize this precision instrument during any competition, Chopard also fits solid mushroom-type pushers with a broad surface engraved with a knurled pattern for a sure grip. In the same vein, Chopard’s large and ratcheted crown also ensures easy use.

Racing champion Jacky Ickx wears the Chopard Mille Miglia 2022 Race Edition.

Chopard fits the new Mille Miglia 2022 Race Edition timepiece with a terrific-looking brown perforated calfskin strap lined with rubber. As usual, Chopard patterns this rubber to echo the tread of 1960s Dunlop Racing tires. Prices: $11,400 (with Ethical rose gold) and $7,770 (steel).

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Zenith and Voutilainen Update Vintage Chronometer

Zenith teams with Phillips and independent watchmaker Kari Voutilainen to restore and hand-decorate a batch of vintage Zenith Caliber 135-O movements. As a result of this partnership, Zenith is launching the Caliber 135 Observatoire Limited Edition, a stunning 38mm platinum chronometer watch rife with vintage design cues that complement the 1950s-era manual-wind movement inside.

The new Zenith Caliber 135 Observatoire Limited Edition.

The modern Zenith star logo on the dial may be the only contemporary design detail on this retro beauty. Its tapered lugs, sapphire glass box crystal, triangular hour markers, faceted gold hands and seconds subdial recall the mid-20th century era when Zenith routinely took prizes in Swiss chronometry competitions – frequently with its Caliber 135. With more than 230 chronometry prizes, the Caliber 135-O holds the most awards of any observatory chronometer caliber in the history of watchmaking.

The Zenith Caliber 135.

In addition to hand finishing the movement, Voutilainen (through his atelier) also applied an eye-catching guilloché engraving in a fish-scale motif to the dial along the bezel. Inside the seconds subdial, you’ll find the movement’s serial number inscribed, a gesture meant to note that each movement, regulated originally by revered chronométriers Charles Fleck or René Gygax, has been updated by Voutilainen and his team.

“The persons working on these movements were the best watchmakers at the time. They had the know-how to make things precise. That precision doesn’t disappear after 70 years,” says Voutilainen. “Our duty was not to touch that performance.”

Voutilainen has refined the historical movement’s aesthetic appearance with hand chamfered and polished edges on the gold-colored bridges, beveled and polished screw-heads, circular graining on the main plate, snailed brushing on the ratchet and crown wheels and more.

Unusually, Zenith and Voutilainen has signed “Neuchâtel” at the bottom of the dial. This denotes the historical Observatory where the Calibre 135-O competed and won so many of it Swiss chronometry competitions.

Zenith and Phillips will offer the new Zenith Caliber 135 Observatoire Limited Edition as a series of ten pieces sold exclusively by Phillips in association with Bacs & Russo. Price: CHF 132,900.

 

by
Keep Reading