Fresh from the Showcase here at SwissWatchExpo.
Today we're dealing with watches that have a lot to do with racing history and we have
a lot of these pieces here because in history, watches and cars tend to go hand in hand.
Why?
Because a lot of chronographs and timing events have to do with watches, right?
Whether it's horse racing or automobile racing.
Yeah.
They said the first car race was when the second car was built!
Well, the timing had to come right in with it.
But the kind of the catalyst for us talking about this today is the great movie Ford versus
Ferrari that came out last year.
It instantly became one of my favorite movies.
I love racing movies, but this is the first one that was ever nominated for best picture.
So it's really a good movie to sound engineering and it is incredible.
Watch it with headphones on, but you couldn't help but notice in the movie the star, then
maybe you might think it was the cars.
You might think it's Matt Damon and Christian bale.
No, it was the watches!
So it was hard for me to keep track of the story for having to be so distracted by looking
at the watches in the movie and I felt a little bit weird about them because I was having
a hard time thinking about the events happening being portrayed as being '64, '65, '66 and
the particular watches that they were wearing, the fact is, and hats off to the costume designers
and to a whole year for doing, getting their product placement and everything in there.
Those watches that they wore in the movie weren't released until later, but if they
had been wearing the correct ones, that would've been really rare for anyone to have owned
them at the time and they would have been extremely expensive.
Now to cast them, they're really rare watches.
That happens a lot in movies by the way.
So the one that Matt Damon's character Carroll Shelby wears and it's very noticeable, it's
a white dial with black sub dials.
It's a Heuer Carrera that came out in 1970 but it looks great on him all through the
movie.
And we actually got here at SwissWatchExpo a reproduction that is a beautiful watch.
You got to know a lot about this watch.
The Autavia was worn by Christian Bale's character, but his didn't look exactly like this.
It was a different model.
But this one is I think just beautiful and if you like that sixties racing feel of whole
vibe,
this watch really captures that Ford versus Ferrari that was going on in the movie.
I particularly like this one on the leather strap.
It gives it that more vintage feel.
I'm not a fan of what I call the Wicker link, right.
Not the actual color, but it looks like a woven Wicker.
Um, it's sort of a strange combination of things and I think it's a very strong opinion
about that bracelet.
Most people tend to like it on the strap and I'm glad that we have it here.
We've got the, it's the reverse Panda dial.
Such a good looking watch.
It really is.
And the cool thing is, is when you turn it over and you see the back of it and you see
the internal movement mechanisms, they actually made a little bit of colorize difference and
there's a lot to look at.
It's not just a one dimensional kind of watch and it really shows off a lot of the technology
that they use in this.
And this is, you know, when you purchase this watch new retail, it's $5,000, almost $6,000.
It's not a cheap watch, it's an in-house movement Tag Heuer.
They specifically developed this for this watch.
By the way, a lot of people don't realize this was a watch that was crowdsourced.
So when Tag Heuer first introduced this watch, they said - Hey, we're going to build an Autavia.
What do you think?
As, you know, people who purchase watches, but this watch should look like they picked
all the design features of this and then Tag Heuer got together, collaborated, and this
is how it came out.
So a lot of people that were smart about what they wanted to see in a watch, chose all the
design features.
Is this based on even previous movies and racing history and all those other things.
They really wanted it to fit one of the coolest, we've got to hear it right next to it.
This is a, a not a reproduction.
This is an actual 1967 Omega Speedmaster Professional, one of the coolest launches anywhere to be
found.
We don't call it a Moon Watch because it wasn't the Moon Watch yet.
NASA hadn't certified it.
It doesn't have the text on the back about the first and only watch worn to them on the
moon.
This one is purely a racing watch.
Can I stop you right there for a second?
Yeah.
Because, okay.
So obviously we have a lot of automobile shows around the country right now.
The Concours d'Elegance, the Caffeine and Octane, and yeah, Pebble Beach.
What I found interesting is, when you walk around these events, and I haven't been to
the d'Elegance, you know, or the Pebble Beach for which I would love to go, but, you know,
I don't think my suits are nice enough.
So the watches that they wear typically are the Moon Watch the speed faster for that reason,
because people always think of it as being the Moon Watch, but in fact, actually it has
a racing history.
And even for me, I feel a little bit weird about it because every, I mean, you know,
that's, it's drilled into your head.
This is the Moon Watch, but actually what you said is 100% correct.
And there's been a big resurgence of interest.
And you know, people like these distressed straps, they like the straps that are perforated,
that are, you know, drilled with the holes that are considered racing straps that were
popular in the 60s.
And, yeah, you just saw it in the 60s.
That explosion of creativity among the watch companies, there was kind of movement at the
time where people were unshackled.
And that's where we get a bunch of these, you know, bright color dials and
new inventive shapes and a lot of neat things.
But this is an authentic 1967.
It's got the beautiful patina on the dial if you really want that true sixties racing
heritage feel, that one's got it all day.
Kind of the next thing that happened was when, I think it was 1971 was the Le Mans movie
and Steve McQueen was known not only as the King of Cool but for bringing his own things
to movies.
So for example, in The Great Escape, the motorcycle jump, that was his own personal triumph motorcycle.
It wasn't some Hollywood prop at the same time.
They tried to get him to wear different, watching that movie, I don't remember now what it was.
You're going to answer us in the comments, but was it a Rolex?
But he insisted on wearing his personal, at the time, this was the Heuer Monaco, which
was a new watch out.
And ever since then it has now been known as the McQueen.
This is the correct one.
Yeah.
But it's kind of on the left.
Yeah, that's what I was playing with that because I was hoping you were getting ready
to say that this is really important because the newer versions of this watch had the updated
movement.
This is the original movement with the crown on the left side of the case as opposed to
being in the center between the two pushers.
Real important.
Also, the color is correct too.
A lot of the pictures that you see, you'll see the black dial.
Now, interestingly enough, there were actually three versions in that movie.
He wore this color, which is kind of a bluish grayish color and the muted winning photograph.
It always looked black for some reason.
Now he did wear a black one because there was more than one.
They had the black dial as well, so once in a while there's an argument about which watch
you're actually seeing in the picture and which cuts you're saying because in some cuts,
you know how the, I mean obviously they're doing scenes, they're cut, they're doing it
over and over and over, over across a few days.
He could have actually picked up one that had the black dial one day and then had the
blue one on the next.
So,
Oh, that movie's a little bit different because they actually filmed it during, I think it
was the 1970 running of the 24 hours at Le Mans.
And so they had a separate car that obviously didn't win the race that had cameras on it.
But they really did film it during the race.
So it says, I mean incredible that they did that.
Yeah, I mean, and there again, you know, watch history is huge at the Daytona.
So the Rolex Daytona 24 Hour, obviously starting in kind of 1934 moving forward.
When Rolex decided to start sponsoring the Daytona Race, which at that time was actually
on the beach, not on a natural track.
That's why the Rolex Daytona is called the Daytona because it was the official timing
official timekeeper of the Rolex Daytona 24 Hour Race that we know now, the endurance
race.
And that was a big deal because at that time cars were just sloppy.
I mean, to get a car to run over a hundred miles an hour for 24 hours in a row was almost
an impossible feat.
So if you're going to be consistent with durability and longevity, wouldn't you want your watch
associated with that too?
Especially with some of the finest automobiles in the world.
This is the watch that you would wear.
Obviously Paul Newman, a huge racer, a big fan of the Daytona always wore one.
That's why they're so expensive.
Now you can find the name, why everybody wants to Paul Newman design with the muted gold
and all that.
So extraordinary history with the Rolex Daytona and it has been around for a very long,
I'm talking about sponsoring events.
I, I have noticed, you know, obviously the last, I don't know how many decades I may
got, has time to the Olympics.
And so that's been... they've continued their involvement in sports.
But the one I was interested in hearing about is you told me that the Tudors are the sponsor
of IMSA.
That is right.
Yes.
So, let, let's backtrack just a second on what you said about Omega.
Let's not forget the Michael Schumacher addition omegas.
This is the reduced model.
There's a 39 millimeter model as well.
Each one of the colors represents each one of the wins that he had over the years starting
around 1995.
So whenever you see a different color and you think to yourself, why are there so many
different colors, each color represents a different women.
So every time he had a championship series when there was a new color developed and so
each color corresponds with a certain year and yeah,
well they didn't have text about his number of championships that he wants to station
and it has the years around the bezel There's so many interesting things to collect in the
Schumacher series and God help him.
He is probably the greatest racer ever.
And there is the Tudor (Pelagos).
It's the left hand dial version of this watch.
What you said is absolutely correct.
Now what you'll see for the end of the series, the big major sponsor now is WeatherTech,
but Tudor was a sponsor of the IMSA series for a very, very long time.
And the thing about Tudor is that they would give watches the actual championship winner.
There is a Grand Tour, which I believe we just recently sold.
I would have used that in this video.
The Grand Tour was one of the prizes that they gave to the top three winners, uh, first,
second, third place at the end of the year.
So all the championship series winners for each one of the divisions by the way.
And I do remember reading that Rolex does still give a Daytona to the winner of the
24 hours race.
That's correct.
I mean it's called the Rolex sports car series.
And I used to live in Florida.
I actually met a guy once it came into my store who had the watch on that.
He had one and you know.
I've actually been to the IMSA series championship dinner here in Atlanta road.
Atlanta is the final race of the series.
And the championship series race.
I've been to that dinner here and watched them giveaway those Tudors.
So it's a lot of fun.
So it's a really neat event over the evening to see all those race car drivers.
And a lot of people don't realize just how hard race car drivers work at their sport.
I don't think they realize just how involved it is physically.
It's a, it's an intense sport.
Now the only other watch that we haven't talked about is the one that I have here, which is
an IWC.
Now, I happen to be wearing an AMG Mercedes IWC, which is obviously important to Atlanta
because Mercedes has their headquarters here.
Now I do you see as a huge sponsor of AMG racing, Formula 1, and even in the IMSA series.
Blancpain is another one.
But the reason that I brought out this particular IWC is because I'm a huge fan of this watch
now.
I did a video on the Rattrapante, how to use it.
A lot of people don't realize it's a split timer.
We've done another video where we introduced this watch too.
Huge fan of this because it's the white dial with the red and the yellow second hand.
No other watch looks like it in the world.
But the reason that this is important to race is because of the split timer - you measure
two different series of cars, you can measure split laps.
There's all kinds of things that you can do with this.
So you have the Daytona, which is just a single chronograph which is a single timing event,
but then you have the split time in which you can time multiple events with.
So that's the reason that I have this one out.
And of course the AMG, titanium body on my left hand here, is just a chronograph as well.
Just a little bit more muted, really cool textures and design on this very sophisticated
as lots of other green car movies with great watches.
James Garner wore a lot of different cool watches and his various movies, even going
to modern times, things like day's offender, a lot of watches in those racing movies.
So something to keep an eye out for.
We can't finish this series off.
We don't have one, but Ayrton Senna for Tag Heuer, one of the most important racers in
the world ever besides Michael Schumacher for Omega.
I think that if you think about racing youth, there's so many huge Ayrton Senna fans out
there.
If I'd had a Tag Heuer Ayrton Senna, we would've displayed to here.
We just don't happen to have it, but we get them in from time to time.
So keep watching, but definitely look for that Senna movie.
That's a good one.
Yeah.