[Music]
Fresh from the
showroom here at SwissWatchExpo, we are talking Roadsters this morning Blake.
Excellent and I'm Blake.
I'm really looking forward to learning more about these watches.
They look very unique, like nothing else we have in the store, and apparently there's
a lot more about these that are really unique too.
Yeah we've got a wide variety of them - when I just typed in Roadster on the “search
our collection” here on SwissWatchExpo.com, we have almost 60 of these.
So they're definitely one of the bedrocks of the collection.
Really successful watch for Cartier.
For some reason that's unknown, they just out of the blue discontinued it a few years
ago.
We've still got plenty of them here on the secondary market as certified pre-owned.
So many different combinations of dials - it's really a fascinating watch.
What strikes you first when you see this watch?
First thing’s definitely the shape of the case, there's really nothing that’s shaped
exactly like it you know.
Yes.
The basic shape, the way the lugs are.
The case shape on this is called tonneau, it means barrel in French.
So it's the top and bottom are flat and the sides are curved just like a barrel.
This is a shape that Cartier actually invented and came out with in 1906.
So at the time, the early 20th century, almost all of the competitors’ watches to Cartier
were round.
Round was absolutely the craze at the time.
Cartier considered himself - and this is Louis Cartier, he was the grandson of the founder
but he was the absolute genius of the watch in jewelry world that made Cartier who they
are now - he pretty much invented any shape that you can think of for a watch that's not
round, came from Cartier.
So you have the rectangular watch, and the tank, you have the oval, and the Benoit, you
have the tonneau, the asymmetrical shapes he invented.
He really considered himself to be making something that was a piece of jewelry that
happened to tell time.
Cartier's history going back to 1847, is that they were the “jeweler to kings and the
king of jewelers,” King Edward said.
They really have an incredible attention to detail.
It really is a different approach to watchmaking from other watch companies because of the
way they view themselves as stylish, sophisticated, very...I want to say just different; where
other watch companies are really focused on the sporting aspect of a watch, Cartier really
is focused on the style of it.
Actually.
They do a lot of fascinating movements.
The Roadster came out in 2001, this was right when Cartier was completing the purchase of
Jaeger Lecoulture and Vacheron Constantin.
They had also just bought Panerai.
So they really were emphasizing the quality of the movements, they were doubling down
on movements but at the same time holding on to that style and sophistication they were
known for.
So when this watch came out in 2001, (it was) definitely caused earthquakes in the watch
world.
It was as you said, not like anything else.
The Roadster is a convertible car, this watch is called Roadster because it's a convertible
watch.
On the back it has a titanium bar that you can just pull down and click the strap off
and click a different color on or click the bracelet on, the bracelet works the same way.
So you can have a lot of fun with your watch and have different colors and you'd be amazed
how different a watch looks just by changing the bracelet.
Here in the front we have - these two are the same watch with a white strap with stitching
versus the steel bracelet, but to look at them it's so strikingly different just by
changing the strap.
It can do it all.
Yeah so the first Roadster I had was the chronograph, the extra-large - this one - and I kept it
mostly on a black nylon strap, it was kind of my motorcycling watch.
Then, a few years later I switched it to the steel bracelet and kind of never went back.
It's a great watch, this is about a 43 millimeter case.
It's an automatic winding mechanical movement.
You can see it's got the Cartier blued steel shape, sword-shaped hands but this time with
loom in the middle; and the Cartier standard silver dial with Roman numerals, the three
sub dials - really beautiful.
The bracelet has a section of satin finish in the middle and high polish on the sides.
Some of the Roadster elements are the Cyclops here, the magnifier that magnifies the date.
It's the same shape that was used on a lot of the curved glass windshields of sports
cars in the 50s and 60s, which also have the shape of the cove behind the front wheel on
the 50s Corvettes.
So a lot of automotive cues here.
The screws, the way they're recessed into the lugs, is very reminiscent of the headlights
on the old Austin-Healey cars of the 50s and 60s.The Crown has gearing on it like a transmission.
On the case back of the watch you can see even the way it says Roadster, the font, even
looks like some of those sports cars again from the 50s and 60s.
The dials even are very sporting related.
There's a lot of different dials you can get on this watch.
This one in particular which is nicknamed the Vegas dial, because of the way it has
the black and red kind of like a roulette wheel, it's actually very reminiscent of the
speedometer on a Porsche 356 speedster - you remember the car that Kelly McGillis drove
in Top Gun?
Okay.
So that was one of the most famous sports cars of all time, and this dial really looks
a lot like the speedometer on that.
So as far as sizes go, they did make three sizes over the years.
There's the extra large, again about 43 millimeter, and you can get it with either the chronograph
or the two time zone, so a GMT function if that works better for you.
It also it gets rid of the extra pushers on the sub dials, so it’s a little bit of a
cleaner look but the same size case if you want that size case but you're not interested
in the chronograph.
The initial size that was for men they call large, and there's a lot of different dials
for it.
You can see on the iPad behind us there's the black dial, they did the silver one with
the black Roman numerals, this one the blue is almost electric it's really stunning, of
course the Vegas style we mentioned.
And then the small would be traditionally considered the ladies watch.
The extra-large and the large are all mechanical.
They're all automatic winding mechanical movements.
The small are all quartz, always.
Cartier kind of had this mentality at the time, I don't know if they still do, that
women cared more that things work and men cared more how they work.
So they generally made their men's watches mechanical and their women's watches quartz.
But you can see here, here's a gold model with a diamond bezel and when you get the
diamond bezel - most Cartier watches have a blue stem on the crown - this one has Pave
diamonds - so that came that way from the factory.
Beautiful watch, it reminds me a little bit of the way
in Breitling you can get a woman's watch that's more sporting but also dressier with the diamonds.
Right.
That's kind of the way I would view the Cartier Roadster.
It's a larger watch than say, a Rolex ladies Datejust.
Absolutely.
And it is not as heavy.
It also has quartz, so if that's appealing to your lady.
It's just a little bigger size and a more unusual shape as well, but again in the large
and the extra-large size that comes in all yellow gold, steel and gold, lots of different
dial colors if you look up - just type in Roadster on our website you'll see everything
we have.
One of the more unusual ones that we've got right now - Cartier only made a hundred and
fifty examples of this watch.
Oh wow.
This one is 18 karat white gold, the dial is burlwood.
It's not a burlwood finish, it's not a paint, it's an actual slab of burlwood like what’s
used on the dashboards of the Bentley and Rolls-Royce cars back during their racing
heyday.
It also has burlwood links in the bracelet here, so this is a really heavy watch because
it is 18 karat white gold.
It's numbered, and again they only made 150 examples of this one and yet here we've got
one available at SwissWatchExpo.
Wow.
Definitely an enthusiasts watch here.
Yeah and there's been a lot of other motoring themed watches the Omega Speedmaster, the
Rolex Daytona comes to mind, the Bentley for Breitling.
Yes.
But the Roadster really is one of the Cartier foundational watches, and it's unknown in
the industry why they discontinued it, but they did.
But it's still in plenty of supply here at SwissWatchExpo, and not only that they just
look just as good as they did back in 2001 when they started.
It's not a style that has waned at all.
Really attractive watches for both men and women.
People still love it.
As far as I know, the quick release on the bracelet here, that's something you can only
get from this, right?
There's absolutely nothing in the luxury watch game that is, you know, that convenient going
in and out that I've ever heard of.
Yeah I agree.
There's some others that come with a screwdriver so you can change the strap, there's some
other quick-release type systems, but this really is the most refined, most sophisticated,
most secure system that I've seen.
The colored straps, yes that's a specialized inpiece on it but Cartier is happy to sell
you as many of those as you would like to buy from them.
They have a range of over 100 colours they do.
Wow.
So truly endless opportunities with this one.
Yeah there really is.
You could make a career of just collecting Roadsters I guess.
Technically you might only need one.
That's true.
Okay, well thank you very much Blake.
I enjoyed talking to you about the Roadsters.
Absolutely.
Find them at SwissWatchExpo.com