building on a legacy
Out in the golden Californian sunshine, the roar of mid-century American muscle cars filled the air. The scene was set at Santa Monica Beach and the star was Montblanc, who had gathered members of its exclusive 4810 Club – the number signifies the height in metres of its namesake mountain – to preview its 2017 headline act: the Montblanc TimeWalker collection.
Earlier that day, the group were treated to an up close with a trio of living legends in rally racing and automobile design. Among them was Kiwi Rhys Millen, who triumphed in the United States’ top drifting series of Formula D, after a bedecked career in rally racing. Also present was Finnish rally drive Ari Vatanen turned member of the European Parliament (1999 to 2009). Vatanen, a quadruple-winner of the fabled Paris-Dakar rally, enthralled the audience with his motto on being passionate about life and pushing the limits. “In every rally, I was excited with the challenge of taming the car, since every second counted in determining success or defeat.”
Rounding off the trio of featured guests was enigmatic Dane Henrik Fisker, the designer behind automotive icons such as the BMW Z8, Aston Martin’s DB9, Fisker Karma and the Galpin-Fisker Mustang Rocket, among many others. His sage words resounded through the room: “when you have the passion for something – it drives you to create extraordinary things.” For Fisker, his most amazing career moment materialised in front of him on a street in Munich when he saw the Z8 of his own design driving by.
Very much in the same vein, the classic cars which chauffeured the group out to lunch at the Larry Thorne Farm in Malibu demonstrated the same exalted spirit of awe-inspiring performance merged with outstanding design – icons of their time which grew into legends of today. For Montblanc, all of these shared qualities in design, performance and legacy-building meaningfully leads back to its breakthrough TimeWalker collection which just debuted to the world at Geneva’s Salon Internationale de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) 2017.
As stated by Jens Henning Koch, Montblanc International’s Executive Vice President for Marketing, the idea of evolving the maison’s professional sports watch line germinated nearly two years ago. The rich trove of timepieces at Montblanc’s high horology workshop in Villeret – the former Minerva manufacture which it bought over – provided inspirational foundation blocks. “We found a rally timer which Minerva had made in 1916 when they were really into racing,” Koch says. Even before then, Minerva’s accomplishments had included stopwatches which measured a tenth of a second before its crowning achievement of 1916 – which enabled readings of a hundredth of a second.
Montblanc’s present-day reflection of this legendary stopwatch is manifested in its top-of- the-line TimeWalker Chronograph 1000 wristwatch (€175,000/RM828,000). Harking back to the record-busting spirit of Minerva’s 1916 technical ability, this exclusive offering is limited to only 18 pieces. Each of it is composed of a 46.4mm titanium case, black DLC coating – for scratch resistance – and a titanium monopusher at 12 o’clock.
Inside, the patented Manufacture Calibre MB M66.26 offers engineering wizardry which results in dual mechanical organs; the first to indicate time and the second dedicated to the chronograph. The latter is able to measure a thousandth of a second through a symphonic interplay of a balance running at 360,000 semi-oscillations per hour –and a tiny steel plate which instantaneously holds this balance the moment the stop function is triggered. Two patents and 22 auxiliary patents indicate the innovation within this high-frequency movement against a global backdrop of high horology.
Chronograph enthusiasts will find plenty of interest in the construction of these high-performance movements, with helical steel springs used for rapid start stop versus the flat steel springs which break easily when heavily stressed. The high-level watchmaking at Montblanc’s Villeret manufacture considers all the internal angles of its 488 components resulting in a robust, synchronous unit. To further augment this point, Montblanc subjects each piece to its arduous Laboratory Test 500 certification – a simulation of intense real-life usage across three weeks.
For Davide Cerrato, Montblanc International’s Managing Director for Watches, the evolution of the previous generation TimeWalkers – launched in 2007 – into fully professional luxury sports watches hinged on the performance expected by the market. “This meant combining a sporty design with elements of visibility in low lighting, overall quality including straps and clasps, waterproofness on the case, joints and pusher buttons, as well as subjecting it to gruelling conditions which we do, in our Laboratory Test 500.”
To consolidate the heritage of motor racing, ceramic bezels and perforated rubber straps were introduced in the current TimeWalker variants which also comprise the Chronograph UTC, Chronograph Automatic and Automatic Date. In addition, Minerva’s historical Rally Timer stopwatch which was used to record road racing nearly a century ago becomes the basis of the exuberant TimeWalker Chronograph Rally Timer Counter (€37,000/RM175,000). “I can’t remember when I had worked on something like this before – a transformable, playful approach which leaves a unique impression,” Cerrato says of the Chronograph Rally Timer Counter.
The functional design on this piece allows it to seamlessly convert from wristwatch to pocket watch and even dashboard clock. Its 50mm satinated case is made of grade-two titanium with a knurled midsection and monopusher, embellishing it with vintage character. An open case-back in the shape of a car grill offers further incentive for owners to observe the beauty of the manual-winding calibre MB M16.29, boasting column wheel and horizontal coupling, recalling the 1930s Minerva calibre which was utilised for both pocket and wristwatches.
At the climactic conclusion to the TimeWalker preview, guests found themselves at Honeypot – a modish creative space in downtown Los Angeles. Here, guests were greeted by several more American odes to high-performance machines and rapturous design. Among them were the ’57 Ford Thunderbird, the ’63 Mercury Comet and the 1958 Chrysler Imperial, one of only 1,800 ever built. It was also here where the complete showing of the TimeWalker 2017 collection was displayed; from the Automatic Date up to the king-of- the-hill Chronograph 1000.
“There are many subtleties which we introduced into the new TimeWalker collection to maintain the identity of this successful line,” Koch explains. “When your starting point is already a successful collection, you have to be careful like you would with the bodywork of an important car. What we have achieved is the enrichment of this collection through pinpoint uses of red, guilloche, the Minerva arrow, shiny ceramic on the bezel and special grid patterns to improve the tactility of this new collection,” he points out.
Under the hood of the Chronograph 1000, the superlative new Manufacture Calibre MB M66.26 remains a connoisseur’s desire. Meanwhile, Cerrato’s undoubted touch in crafting this collection heralds a new generation of TimeWalker enthusiasts; those who may be unfamiliar with the collection but will undoubtedly identify with the strong automobile racing identity – an identity forged over generations of gentlemanly competition and good sportsmanship, from a century and over before today.
