Partnerships between watch brands and car manufacturers vary as much in quality and intensity as their rides. They go from the simple addition of a logo, to a complete fusion of the spirits of both brands and the objects they create. In the case of supercars, and particularly hypercars, the bar has been set very high, as Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren and Bugatti demonstrate. Watchmakers have risen to the challenge, coming up with some truly exceptional watches.
The Aventador S is a yellow and grey rocket, developing 740 horsepower for a weight of a little over one and a half tonnes. Roger Dubuis, Lamborghini’s freshly anointed partner, drew inspiration from the car maker’s pioneering use of carbon fibre. The Excalibur Aventador S limited series, with its lateral struts, also reflects the external appearance of the 6.5 litre V12 engine.
Excalibur Aventador S. © Roger Dubuis
McLaren doesn’t do ordinary. By transposing its half-century of racing expertise to the road, the British brand has created a stir over the last six years. How Much Is Richard Mille Watches Replica saw how much they had in common, and launched the RM 50-03 McLaren F1. Collaboration between the two companies led to the development of a lighter and slimmer movement. The TPT carbon case includes graphene, an ultra-light and ultra-rigid material that McLaren uses for its cars’ chassis.
It’s a great opportunity for Richard Mille to experiment with colors and further develop the mythical RM 11 watch collection which helped put the brand on the map. In its advanced form, the RM 11 has the same useful movements, but a exotic instance produced from Quartz TPT, a substance made in Switzerland and borrowed from functionality vehicles. The substance is a dense layering of countless sheets of silica which are mere microns thick for each layer. The blue is merely cosmetic, but it would not be a Richard Mille without an invigorated splash of color.Richard Mille first published a Quartz TPT-cased watch back in 2015 using the RM 27-02 Rafael Nadal. In that previous article you’ll be able to find out more about the lightweight, yet very strong and visually intriguing material. It isn’t as iconic as gold or platinum (however you can not “impregnate” — that is the true term Richard Mille uses — those conventional luxury materials with colours like blue, black, red, yellow, yellow, and white as has been done to a assortment of high-end restricted watches from the manufacturer). A concise look at Richard Mille watches produced from Quartz TPT covered on aBlogtoWatch demonstrates the visual variety available — more so, how effective use of exotic and modern materials like this have been to get a brand like Richard Mille.Richard Mille himself, along with the brand do really hang closely by people like Mr. Todt. Part of the honesty in their relationship is what makes limited editions such as this perhaps more interesting to see fans than those we see from a number of other watch brands where the relationship feels a lot more like simple marketing. That Jean Todt and Richard Mille would continue to celebrate Todt’s life and accomplishments together makes sense — partly because Mr. Todt himself would be the archetype of someone who needs to be a Richard Mille client. More so, this RM 11-03 is far from the most expensive timepiece Richard Mille has made in honour of the guy.
RM 50-03 McLaren © Richard Mille
Taking over from the Veyron and its many iterations, Bugatti continues to improve performance with the Chiron. The 1500 hp W16 engine is as extravagant as the interior is luxurious, powering this beast from 0 to 400 km/h in 32 seconds. Parmigiani, a partner of the Molsheim-based car builder for 13 years, is celebrating the birth of the Chiron with the Type 390. Its coaxial triangular barrel coupling system, articulated case angled at 12° and unconventional design make the Chiron watch every bit as extraordinary as its vehicular namesake.
Bugatti Type 390 © Parmigiani
Ferrari spent a long time looking for exactly the right partner. By launching the Masterpiece MP-05 at the same time as the LaFerrari, Hublot showed it was quite capable of keeping up with the mechanical mayhem. Both brands have switched it up a gear. The Techframe Ferrari Tourbillon Chronograph, designed by Ferrari’s own in-house design studio, has a case built on a lattice structure, and red accents that bring to mind the steering wheel of a Ferrari road car – which is a very nice machine indeed.
Hublot Techframe Ferrari Tourbillon Chronograph © Hublot
As we see, fantastically engineered watches, like cars, are capable of transporting enthusiasts into a parallel dimension. All it takes is sufficient technical and financial resources, designers who have been given free rein, and total immersion in the supercar spirit. Cars may remain the epitome of male fantasy, but watches aren’t far behind.