Chronoswiss’ website is currently fubar. That’s a bit worrying. Manufacturing a mechanical watch is lot more difficult than publishing a website. Then again, producing a mechanical watch that looks like nothing else – in a good way – is more challenging still. Which is exactly what Chronoswiss has done with their new Chronoswiss Regulator Classic Carbon Racer . . .
I lie. The Carbon Racer looks like the Swiss company’s virtuosic 2016 Flying Regulator. And its classically styled (and relatively inexpensive) forebearer, the all-steel Regulator. Not to mention other, wilder iterations. In fact, Chronoswiss has been playing with this layout since their first chronometer in 1988.
You can see why Chronoswiss keeps riding this horological horse. The basic design is both striking and intuitive. To read the time, clock the hours in the top sub-dial, scan the minutes with the “main” hand, and keep track of the seconds in the bottom sub-dial. Done.
An automotive Regulator’s been done: the 2017 Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio Edition. No surprise there, given Chronoswiss founder Gerd-Rüdiger Lang’s motorsports madness. Back in the day, the master watchmaker hung out with Steve McQueen at Le Mans. Herr Lang’s produced official timers for motor racing events, and chronometers for the aforementioned Alfa and Audi.
The Carbon Racer is more dramatic than its Alfa predecessor – and more automotive. The hour hand’s “rev counter” redline now runs between 7 and 9 (as opposed to 6 to 8), reflecting the higher rev range of recent supercars. Or watch owners’ later bedtime. A red “speedometer-style” minutes track circumnavigates the dial. The second hands sub-dial sits over a spinning gear.
Yes, well, the Classic Carbon Racer’s onion-shaped crown – a Chronoswiss corporate signature – is pure buggy whip. A functional rev counter doesn’t travel a full 360 degrees. And I can’t drive 55. Never mind. Like the Oris Big Crown ProPilot X, the Racer is Chronoswiss kicking out the jams. Rocking the Casbah. Something like that.
Chronoswiss’s Caliber C.295 powers the 41mm Regulator Classic Carbon Racer. The time-only movement’s based on an ETA caliber, modified with Chronoswiss’s proprietary regulator (of course). The temporal engine’s decorated with Côtes de Genève and perlage, complete with an engraved rhodium-plated rotor and a polished pallet lever and escape wheel.
[NOTE: The picture above shows the Alfa watch’s innards. Chronoswiss – the company that invented the crystal caseback – hasn’t released a photo of the Racer’s movement.]
Chronoswiss makes a large range of conventional watch designs and some major haute horology. All of them are manufactured to an extremely high standard. Sad to say, the Swiss brand doesn’t get the respect it deserves – at least not at auction.
I don’t know if the $4,750 Chronoswiss Regulator Classic Carbon Racer will move the needle. But there’s no doubt it will move the hearts of savvy collectors looking for something unusual, sporty, dramatic, beautifully made and, well, fun.