Swiss watchmaker Baume & Mercier has honoured New Zealander Burt Munro (pictured) and the speed record he set on his modified Indian Scout motorcycle at Utah’s Bonneveille Salt Flats 50 years ago.
The luxury brand has created the Clifton Club Burt Munro Tribute, a chronograph wristwatch limited to 1967 pieces, denoting the year Munro, then aged 68, set the 184.087 mph (296km/h) record. Each watch retails for US$3750.
Baume & Mercier partnered with the Indian company in August, a collaboration it said was a deal with “America’s first motorcycle company.”
Munro was a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast from Invercargill who bought the Indian bike in 1926 and spent the next 40 years modifying it for greater and greater speeds. His story was told in the dramatised 2006 film, The World’s Fastest Indian.
Several elements of the new timepiece salute Munro, who died in 1978. The most prominent include the large, yellow “number 35” badge in the chronograph seconds subdial at 9 o’clock, referencing Munro’s favorite colour and the racing number on his bike, and the “Indian red” colour of the calfskin strap, a shade of vermillion that is readily identified with Indian motorcycles.
Additionally, the cursive “I” of the Indian logo forms the counterweight to the red chronograph seconds hand, and the sandblasted finish on the silver-colored dial is meant to evoke the surface of the Bonneville Salt Flats.
The black tachymeter scale around the bezel not only channels the spirit of racing but highlights the number 184 in honor of Munro’s record-setting 184mph ride.
The 44-mm-diameter steel case has a polished finish. The solid, screwed-down caseback features an engraved image of the motorcycle company’s Indian Headdress logo as well as the watch’s limited-edition number.
Under a glare-proofed, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, the dial has black, rhodium-plated riveted hour indices and hour and minute hands treated with green-emission Super-LumiNova.
A date window is tucked into the hour-counter subdial at 6 o’clock. The subdial hands and the inner edge of the riveted flange are also highlighted in red.
The engine churning inside this racing bike for the wrist is an ETA Valjoux 7750, with automatic winding, 25 jewels, a 28,800-vph frequency, and a power reserve of 48 hours.
The movement has an integrated chronograph that can be used in conjunction with the tachymeter scale to record speeds.
The 50-meter water-resistant watch comes with an additional black calfksin strap, with cream stitching, alongside the Indian red calf strap.