Michael Thompson
Among the many recently released racing-influenced timepieces, two stand out for me this week as we look forward the 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500 competition this Memorial Day. Each of the watches replica offers terrific technical specs and an appealing design that would look great on the wrist of any winner atop a post-race podium. But my two choices this week also appeal to me because I had the pleasure recently of speaking with two of the passionate individuals who make these watches replica come alive.
The first watch is Baume & Mercier’s newest Capeland Shelby Cobra 1963 chronograph, particularly the latest limited edition model with a prominent number 96 on its dial. The number 96 is the racing ID of Allen Grant, one of Shelby American’s original employees and team driver on the 1965 World Championship team. He was a key contributor to the success of the Shelby American racing program and its incredible upset victory at the FIA World Championships. By season’s end, Grant personally earned twenty percent of the points needed for Shelby American to win the championship, which was the first and only time an American car has won the FIA Sports Car World Championship.
Grant, a lifelong friend and confidant of Carroll Shelby, recently spoke at Baume & Mercier’s U.S. debut event celebrating this latest Capeland Shelby Cobra. Hearing Grant recall the heady early days of Shelby racing is a real treat. His love for racing is obvious and his high-regard for the designers, builders and racers at each stage of competition shines in each story he relates from that pioneering era. (Did you know Grant’s partner at the time was now famous writer and director George Lucas?)
Just a few weeks ago, Grant joined Baume & Mercier once again, this time in France at the Castellet Circuit for the unveiling of the watch bearing his number 96, as well as three additional Capeland Shelby Cobra watches replica dedicated to famed racecar drivers Dan Gurney (#15), Ken Miles (#50) and Dave Mac Donald (#97).On the case of the watch dedicated to Grant, Baume & Mercer has engraved “Allen Grant, one out of 15.” Each new model will be sold in a limited edition of fifteen.
These new 44mm editions are each automatic timepieces (with an ETA Valjoux 7753 inside) with cases in polished satin–finished steel or steel-ADLC and straps in vulcanized rubber or alligator. Each of these four Capeland Shelby Cobra 1963 Legendary Drivers Edition watches replica features a variation on black, white and yellow: the dial, tachymeter scale and straps are inspired by color combinations on the CSX2128’s bodywork. These collector items will be released in October 2016, each priced at $4,850.
My second choice is perfectly time, so to peak, for next week’s 100th green flag at Indianapolis. I mention the flag because at last year’s race racer and actor Patrick Dempsey dropped it to launch the 99th Indy 500, which he spoke of with obvious glee when I interviewed him at the recent Timecrafters public watch show in New York.
It’s clear that Dempsey enjoys racing, though his team is without his services behind the wheel this year as he takes a break from the on-track aspect of this passion. (Read more from Dempsey in my interview here). Likewise, he’s a fan of watches replica with a true racing patrimony, and there are few brands, if any, with the storied racing history as impressive as TAG Heuer, the brand Dempsey is now representing as an ambassador. TAG Heuer has partnered with the race at Indianapolis since 2004, and Dempsey’s appearance in New York was in part linked to the launch of the brand’s two Indy 500-themed timepieces for 2016, one of which is my second choice as a favorite race watch.
While one of the two watches replica, a specially marked Formula One Indy Limited, looks fine enough, my pick this week is the 100-piece TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 01 limited edition is the firm’s 45mm titanium-coated steel chronograph with the flagship in-house Heuer 01 automatic chronograph caliber inside, here skeletonized.
For this edition TAG Heuer as added INDY 500 in red on the bezel, a red INDY 500 engraving on the back, and has also printed the Indianapolis Speedway logo atop the running seconds subdial at 9 o’clock. In addition to the top-notch column-wheel engine, perhaps the star of the watch is its modular nature. The steel case features alternate finishings, including polished and fine brushed steel lugs, fine brushed black titanium carbide coated steel middle case and a black titanium-carbide-coated steel bezel with grey tachymeter scale. This special TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 01 limited edition is a bold racing watch perfect for any spectator –or participant– in this Monday’s Indy 500. Price: $5,700.
Tim Mosso
Cars and watches replica are the most natural union of special interests conceivable. Among watch collectors, the correlation of one infatuation to the other must be exceptionally close to one. But while major luxury watch brands are eager to associate with their road-going counterparts, a select few co-branded efforts transcend the appearance of pandering cynicism rife in this segment: Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Amvox 2 chronograph and the F.P. Journe Octa Automatique Reserve Sport Indy 500 Jean Alesi vie for pole position among the best of the breed.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s 2005-2015 partnership with Aston Martin was a fully-committed effort that deserves a comprehensive retrospective, but the 2006 Amvox 2 chronograph was the creative high-water mark of this relationship. More than a styling exercise – and a great one at that – the Amvox 2 represented a blue-sky reimagining of how a user should interact with a motorsports chronograph.
Before the Amvox 2, the “driver’s chronograph” had changed little since the 1957 Omega Speedmaster 2915 debuted in its first life as a proposition to racers. Jaeger-LeCoultre started with the assumption that gloved hands and tiny pump pushers were a bad match; the case of the Amvox 2 acts as the chronograph triggers and pivots on ball bearings. While small pushers – especially the screw down variety – frustrate use of a chronograph while wearing gloves, the 44mm case of the Amvox provides a big target for fat fingers.
JLC’s system was ingenious. Push the crystal at 12 to start and stop; press the crystal at six to reset. A sliding function selector at nine o’clock could provide lockout to prevent accidental resetting out of sequence or to disable the chronograph functions entirely. Revolving discs with fixed indices tracked the hours and minutes, and a skeletonized lower 90-degree sweep from four to eight o’clock revealed the red anodized chronograph hammers. The JLC chronograph caliber 751E combined traditional column wheel function selection with the efficiency of a modern vertical clutch engagement, and 65 hours of power reserve ensured that a certain 24 hours in southern France was no challenge at all.
Deft styling and subtle co-branding sealed the Amvox 2’s status as a class champion. The 270-degree sweep of the hour track recalled the vintage Jaeger dashboard instruments still in service aboard thousands of mid-century Aston Martin automobiles. Impressive use of bare metal, depth effects, and contrasting finish ensured that the revolutionary chronograph looked the part. An internal compromise between Jaeger-LeCoultre management and its design teams ensured that the Aston Martin winged logo was visible only in severe lighting and only at the right angle of incidence.
Despite five official models, innumerable variants, and several Aston Martin-themed watches replica from the regular Jaeger-LeCoultre model lines, the Amvox 2 stands apart even from this illustrious crowd. When JLC designed the Amvox 7 – the final watch in the series – the Le Sentier watchmaker revived the Amvox 2 chronograph concept as the ultimate sendoff to a memorable partnership.
On the eve of America’s 2016 Memorial Day Classic – the 100th Indianapolis 500 – there is no better time to recall F.P. Journe’s Octa Automatique Reserve Sport Indy 500 Jean Alesi. Four years after it’s brief run, the 29-piece limited edition remains one of the least likely and most memorable entrants in the sub-genre of watch/auto crossovers.
Ask any collector to name athlete-themed or automotive co-branded luxury watches replica, and a litany of Hublot, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet, and Omega references are likely to follow. As a rule, Geneva boutique brand F.P. Journe tends to avoid both marketing angles. And that’s only the first reason why the Sport Indy 500 Jean Alesi is such an outlier.
Naturally, Jean Alesi is the other reason. If the name doesn’t register with the immediacy of hero-watch namesakes Juan Pablo Montoya, Michael Schumacher, or Rubens Barrichello, it’s because Alesi’s prime years coincided with the Bad Old Days of early 1990s Scuderia Ferrari. Despite over 200 grand prix starts, Alesi’s career highlight was his solitary victory at the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix. That’s not to say he was slow, because 32 career podiums achieved in marginal racecars is a serious resume.
It gets stranger; Alesi’s F.P. Journe tribute launched in 2012 – over a decade after the driver’s last F1 start. Alesi became the oldest driver to take the Indy rookie test one month before his 48th birthday. The veteran racer retired in the fall of that year following a low-key 500 in yet another uncompetitive machine. But if Alesi’s unique Octa launched at the close of his career, it marked a coming-of-age moment for the Journe brand.
By the 2011 launch of the regular Linesport series, F.P. Journe could recall nearly three decades of watchmaking and over a decade of doing so under his own name. The all-aluminum 42mm Linesport cemented Journe’s status as a risk taker and an iconoclast. After crafting comparatively petite 36-40mm watches replica in formal styles, Francois-Paul had the confidence to cut loose with an adventurous materials-science project of ambitious size and style. Conservative devotees of the brand were served a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.
And the 99-piece Indy 500 series went even further by embracing the “black watch” movement better associated with the likes of Hublot, Panerai, and Audemars Piguet. Within that limited series, the 29 “Jean Alesi” examples issued another provocation in the form of “Indy 500,” “Lotus,” and “Jean Alesi” logos blazon on the dial. While mechanically daring from inception, the Journe brand had never trod this turf, and since the “Alesi,” Journe hasn’t revisited these heights of graphical exuberance.
As with all Linesport models, the Octa Automatique Reserve Sport Indy 500 Jean Alesi featured an aluminum case, aluminum movement, and optional aluminum bracelet or rubber strap. At its core, the watch was part of the Octa automatic family of models launched in 2001, and it packed the same 120-hour power reserve caliber 1300 base movement. The “Alesi” included a power reserve gauge, a day/night indicator, and a grande date to animate its stark dial. Curious signage and theme aside, the watch remains a phenomenal example of artisanal horology.
F.P. Journe – the man, not the brand – is known to have crafted watches replica with friends in mind. Journe’s French compatriot, Jean Todt, the former Scuderia Ferrari chieftain and current FIA President, is credited by Journe as the godfather of the Centigraphe model. Was Alesi, as the premier French F1 pilot of his generation, equally inspiring to Journe? If nothing else, the watch that bears Alesi’s name is remarkable for celebrating an unlikely hero in a most unconventional fashion.
Nancy Olson
Zenith El Primero Chronomaster 1969 Tour Auto Edition
Partner of the “Tour Auto Optic 2000” for the past two years, Zenith presented an exclusive series of 500 El Primero chronographs dedicated to this classic car rally, which this year stretched from Paris to Cannes. From April 18 to 24, 240 contestants drove through the most beautiful regions of France, testing their mettle on closed roads and circuits dotted along the five legs of the race. Only car models having taken part in the historical race between 1951 and 1973 are eligible for the competition and must not have undergone any modification of their engine or bodywork.
Inspired by these exceptional automobiles, the El Primero Chronomaster 1969 Tour Auto Edition timepieces are driven by the El Primero 4061 automatic chronograph movement. Fitted with a silicon lever and escape wheel, this 282-part wonder drives central hours and minutes hands, along with chronograph and tachymeter functions, while ensuring a 50-hour power reserve. The 42mm brushed stainless steel watch has a gray dial and a transparent sapphire crystal caseback with the Tour Auto logo. The tri-color detail on the dial is echoed on the gray fabric strap.
Chopard Superfast Porsche Motorsport 919
Earlier this year, Chopard presented a Superfast COSC-certified chronograph in a limited series of 17 pieces dedicated to the victory of the Porsche Motorsport team in the 2015 World Endurance Championship. The German racing team for which Chopard has been serving as Official Timing Partner since 2014 won its 17th title, marking a triumphant return to endurance competition. This trophy was won at the wheel of the Porsche 919 Hybrid – of which the Superfast Porsche Motorsport 919 limited edition takes its design codes.
The watch’s 45 mm-diameter stainless steel case is water-resistant to 100 meters and its tachymeter-equipped bezel is crafted in 18-karat rose gold, secured by eight blackened screws. The screw-lock crown is adorned with a black rubber-molded “steering wheel,” while the striped sides of the case recall the cooling vents on racing engines augmented by the linear dial motifs and the open-worked movement bridges. The silver-toned dial is inspired by Porche’s famous metallic gray, while its stripes evoke the rear diffuser of the Porsche 919 Hybrid.
Inside is the Chopard Caliber 03.05-M, equipped with a flyback function, and featuring an open-worked oscillating weight visible through a sapphire crystal engraved with the inscriptions “Official Timing Partner Porsche Motorsport” and “Winner World Endurance Championship 2015.”