It’s safe to assume that every one of the 475 watches made to celebrate the 75th birthday of the Porsche nameplate would have been spoken for before they officially went on sale this week, from June 8.
The special edition timepiece is called Chronograph 1 – 75 Years Porsche Edition (above) and is priced at $US11,000, or $NZ17,500. It is modelled after the Chronograph 1, the first watch the Porsche design studio made and the first watch with a black case and black dial. It was made in partnership with Swiss company Orfina.
That was in 1972 when the studio was headed by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche – nicknamed ‘Butzi’ – the design specialist and grandson of company founder Professor Ferdinand Porsche.
Prof. Porsche of course was responsible for the iconic German nameplate, which first appeared on the Porsche 356 No. 1 Roadster in 1948 – 75 years ago. But it was Buzzi who, in the early 1960s, shape-shifted his grandad’s design to pen the first 911, the car which, more than anything, is synonymous with the name Porsche.
The all-black watch all of a sudden influenced car design. For example, up until 1972, the trim and window surrounds in 911 variants were chrome. After 1972, they were painted matte black, a change inspired by Butzi’s watch.
The studio later became Studio F. A. Porsche and continued with watch design. It partnered with high-end Swiss watchmaker IWC to create some out-there designs that have a cult following among vintage collectors these days.
Elements in the Porsche 75th birthday watch salute those in the original Chronograph 1. The rotor is in the shape of the 911 Fuchs alloy wheels, with the Porsche crest in the centre.
The 911’s dashboard inspires the watch’s matte-black dial which features white indexes and a tachymeter bezel, while the case has been updated to titanium with a black titanium carbide coating. The 1972 watch was stainless steel with a black powder coat.
The anniversary watch is 40mm in diameter, 14.15mm thick, and water resistant to 100m. It comes with a textile strap with blue and red stitching and an all-black leather strap that can be swapped out with the quick-change system.
Porsche design is part of the Porsche AG empire but separate from the car company. Its designers work out of a studio which overlooks a lake in the Austrian village of Zell-am-See, 80km from Salzburg.
Its clients have included some of the world’s big industrial names … mobile phone companies, watchmakers, electronics and camera giants among them. In a roundabout way it can count Subaru New Zealand among its clients, too.
In 1998, Subaru’s head office in Japan hired the Porsche studio to produce a special edition Legacy RSK B4 sedan and wagon. The car was given the moniker Blitzen – German for lightning – and unveiled at the Tokyo motor show in 1999.
The RSK B4 already had a rally-bred chassis and turbocharged 2.0-litre flat-four engine and a modest go-fast body kit, but Subaru hankered after a limited-edition hustler, a bandit like the Red Baron.
Porsche design quickly added the visual oomph with unique front and rear bumpers and rear spoiler. Black 17-inch alloy wheels set off the tomato-red body.
It also trimmed the interior with special upholstery and gave the instrument panel a metallic look. Subaru then tinkered with the suspension, adding lightweight alloy components.
Subaru NZ managing director Wally Dumper clocked Blitzen at the 1999 Tokyo show. “When we first saw it some of the New Zealand dealers harassed me about importing it.
“Subaru in Japan were reluctant to give us any at all. They wanted to keep it purely as a domestic model. I don’t know how many were manufactured but the limited-production run ended in March 2000.”
Dumper managed to get hold of five Legacy Blitzens for New Zealand, the only country outside of Japan to carry the car. They landed here in June 2000, each priced at $75,000 and running a boosted 2.0-litre boxer engine and five-speed manual gearbox.
In Japan, Blitzen was available with either the manual ‘box or electronic Sportshift, a three-way transmission offering a traditional automatic mode or a clutchless manual using either the gear lever or steering wheel-mounted Formula One-style buttons.
The five-speed manual RSK B4 was more powerful than the Sportshift model, developing 205kW at 6500 rpm and 343Nm at 5000 rpm against 190kW and 319Nm.
Power from the boxer engine was directed to all four wheels, with torque split 35:65 to the front and rear axles in the Sportshift and 50:50 in the manual model.
Dumper figured New Zealand buyers would go for the manual Blitzen. Four were quickly sold and the fifth was put up for auction via Subaru dealers.
• Legacy RSK B4: RS designated a performance model, from the German Rennsport; K that it was turbocharged, from the German kompressor; B for its boxer engine; and 4 for permanent all-wheel-drive.