America’s Road&Track magazine has paired some of its favourite cars with watches it believes share similar values. What do you think of Road&Track’s mating game?
Porsche 911 / Rolex Submariner (above): Both wonderful classics. After 51 years of continuous development, the latest generation 911 benefits from great leaps in speed, safety and technology while maintaining its legendary silhouette. Likewise the Rolex Submariner. It has been exploring the world’s oceans since 1954. Early versions of the Submariner were associated with scuba pioneer Jacques Cousteau. Soon thereafter, Rolex famously tested their mettle with Auguste Piccard’s bathyscaphe dive of 1953 and in 1960 another specially designed Rolex rode outside the Trieste for Jacques Piccard’s dive to the Challenger Deep.
Ford GT / Devon Tread 2: This is the new Americana: Each represents the pinnacle of their respective design lineages. The Devon Tread 2 is represented by a digital-analog hybrid that uses numbered belts instead of rotating hands. The Tread 2 creator Scott Brown’s design firm created the Viper-based Devon GTX sports car before making the switch to watches. The 2017 Ford GT is a carbon fibre work of art, with hollow circular tail-lights that serve as exhausts for hot air coming off the intercoolers that help keep the twin-turbocharged, direct-injection 3.5-litre V6 delivering its 450kW.
Mazda MX-5 / Seiko Dive: Proof here that a perfect pairing doesn’t have to be a pricey pairing. The Mazda MX-5 has become the best selling sports car in the world since it first appeared in the late 1980s. The latest fourth-generation model embodies all that Mazda set out to do with the original: make a lightweight car that is fun to drive. The Seiko Dive Watch predates the MX-5 but has become just as significant since its introduction in 1985. Seiko’s history with dive watches dates back into the 1960s, but it was the bomb-proof and affordable Quartz Diver that will define Seiko’s dive watch legacy.
BMW M3 / Sinn 240: Each is an evolved and thoughtful rendering of good steel into elegant lines. The BMW M3 is as close as you get to loving a sensible thing. Four doors and a glorious 3.0-litre straight-six good for 317kW. It all comes together under a carbon fiber roof. Sinn traces its roots to 1961, but the elegant and contemporary bead-blasted Sinn 240 is all modernity. The 240 is the most recent of Sinn’s offerings, but the self-winder joins a family that’s traveled to space on the wrists of German astronauts and still includes mechanical rally timers.
Chevrolet Corvette / Breitling Emergency: The 2015 Chevrolet Corvette and the Breitling Emergency are both are unlikely to be used to their potential by their respective buyers. The Corvette Stingray and its 343kW pushrod V8 engine sells for $US55,000 in the United States, a bargain say some. Breitling’s Emergency watch is just as functional as the ‘Vette but comes with a personal locator beacon. When activated, the watch first transmits a distress call to a low-earth satellite network, then allows rescuers to home in on its location with an entirely different radio signal.
Caterham Seven / Apple Watch: What does the latest in wearable computing have to do with an anachronistic sports car? Both pack an almighty ton of performance into a tiny thing. The Seven 160 is the slowest and least expensive car made by Caterham. It might also be their best, because it finds the perfect balance between simplicity and satisfaction that made the original Seven a legend. That simplicity pairs nicely with the Apple Watch. Already an example of design and innovation, the Apple Watch is the perfect way to take up the technological slack left by a seven dashboard that would have been considered spartan even in the 1950s.
Range Rover / Omega Speedmaster: If your day is as likely to include a black tie event as it is a moon landing, there’s no better watch than the Omega Speedmaster. Certified by NASA for operations in space in 1965, the Speedmaster was on astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s wrist to the surface of the moon, and famously saved the hides of the Apollo 13 crew. The lunar surface is one of few places man has been that the Range Rover hasn’t. The luxury off-roader invented a new class of SUV on its introduction and continuous updates make the Range Rover just as relevant, and just as desirable, today.
Ferrari / Rolex Daytona: Some pairings are perfect. Matching a Ferrari and the Rolex Daytona, for instance. Daytona has long been a brand apart inside both companies. There’s no question that the fortunes of Ferrari and Rolex are deeply and improbably tied to the famous strip of Florida beach. If you’re not up for flogging your Ferrari to victory at the 24-hour enduro, you can at least honor the intent. Special points for matching the red colour of your car to the subtle red hashes of a Daytona Paul Newman, one of the rarest and most collectible Rolexes ever built.