Episode 113 - Chronographs at the Detroit Auto Show

Hey Watch Fans,

Lets take a closer look at Chronographs. The history and the significance.
Who goes to a Car Show without wearing chronographs....we do. LOL
But we do feel that chronographs belong at a car show.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to watch Fanatics podcasts. If he'd like, you
can follow me David at watch Fanatic David or Kevin
at watchfanatics dot Ca. Please subscribe and feel free to
leave us a five star review on wherever you download
your podcasts. We hope you enjoy the show. Hello everyone,

(00:26):
welcome back. As some of you know, the watch Fanatic
crew just went to Detroit and back specifically to see
the Detroit Auto Show. And it's no secret we're a
fan of watches and we're a fan of cars, and
many of you watch fans out there are also a
fan of cars. Because of the rich history of horror

(00:50):
manufacturing and watch manufacturing. Besides the obvious parallels like with
engineering and history and cultural significance, there is a direct
link in our histories where carriage companies, when they went
from being pulled by horses to being self motorized, either

(01:12):
contracted or employed watch manufacturers to develop instruments, whether it's
the speedometer, tacometer, or even time piece in the carriage. Now,
several years ago I did something like that. I posted
something on my Instagram with Herbie the love Bug. That's

(01:35):
one example that just pops out in my mind where
the antagonist car in Herbie, when they show the dash,
you can clearly see that made the tacometer and speedometer
of Jejeri Lakotra is clearly marked on the dash. And

(01:58):
that's just one example that's going back into the seventies
this movie, but I believe the antagonist car was even
a sixties model, so even back then you can see
that there is a continued relationship. And in our other podcast,
we discuss collaborations between watch companies and car companies, and

(02:24):
these were licensed collaborations, and license being the keyword because
not only do these companies understand their relationship together in history,
but they also understand that the fan base of cars
and watches clearly overlap. And these licensed collaborations are huge

(02:49):
because for these two companies to get together, there must
have been a lot of money spent, a lot of legalese,
a lot of Bureaue Chris, and a lot of I'm
sure at some levels resistance, you know, I'm sure there
were the accountants that would have said, this doesn't make sense,

(03:11):
why I go the extra mile for these collaborations. But
being licensed, I think emphasizes and legitimizes there is a
strong overlap of cars and watches, not just in history
but to this present day, and that's clearly seen with
Brightening with their collaboration. I believe they incorporated a watchwinder

(03:36):
in the car as well as the watch for the
car in the purchase of the car. But for this episode,
I do want to talk about chronographs and to understand
why I want to talk about chronographs. When I was
a new collector, I sometimes would hear the term driver, diever, flyer,

(04:02):
meaning those are the three genres of watches, driver, flyer, diver,
you know, dive watches, pilot watches, and I assumed drivers
meaning chronographs. I've also, at the same time heard that
comparison of drivers, divers, and flyers to land, sea and

(04:27):
air pilot watches, air and flyer, dive watches, see and diver.
But there's always a confusion with land and drivers because land,
I would assume at that time when hearing those three words,
I would assumed land as a field watch, not as

(04:48):
a chronograph. So I'm still not clear. When we were
at the Detroit Oil Show, we had a little bit
of debate about that, but regardless of what the outcome
of that debate, there was an agreeance that chronographs are
strongly attached to the automotive world, and for that, I

(05:11):
just wanted to talk a little bit about chronographs. I
do have one chronograph, and I mean that by more
of the traditional subdial to measure an event versus some
of my digital watches. They all have a stop watch.
And whether it's digital or more traditional like my citizen

(05:37):
chronograph with a subdial and start and stop, reset pusher,
I think they're very cool. It's a very cool complication.
But let's get into the history of the chronograph a little.
I want to get into the chronograph talk because you
often hear about usually people who want aren't as educated

(06:01):
into the watch world as we are. We hear, oh, Swiss,
is it Swiss? Is it Swiss made? Is it a
Swiss watch? We ourselves sometimes start to believe that the
Swiss is the almighty when it comes to watches. But
looking into chronographs, you have to remember the French had
a strong presence as well as the British. But that's

(06:26):
I think I might discuss about the British dominance and
watches in past episodes, but I'm reminded with chronographs how
important the French were in the history of watches. Now,
first off, what I found interesting was the word chronograph

(06:46):
actually is Greek, I cannot pronounce it, but very similar
to chronographos I think, and it actually means time recording.
And it's cool. Yeah, a chronograph means time recording. And
that's because back in the day they used a small
pen and they mark off a part of the dial

(07:09):
or the face of the time piece to record the
length of an event. But the chronograph as we know
it was invented by Louis Mionet in eighteen sixteen, and
that was for astronomical equipment. He should be credited for
that in eighteen sixteen. And it was King Louis the

(07:33):
Eighth in eighteen twenty one that asked Nicholas mattheu Reussec
to create a chronograph that can be marketed for others,
specifically to watch horse racing. I believe a significant French
contribution to the world of watches as we know today.

(07:57):
And in nineteen thirteen, Long Genes created the first chronograph
movement for a wristwatch. And that's cool because it's Long
Jeans as a brand I don't know too much about,
so to see that it was the first company to
develop a chronograph for the wristwatch back in nineteen thirteen.

(08:20):
It's pretty cool. And then of course in nineteen fifteen,
Gaston Brightling then was the first to produce a chronograph
with a central second hand and a thirty minute counter,
which eventually, you know, you could see the evolution of
the chronograph. We have on a risk right now. Very cool.

(08:42):
What I thought was interesting because chronograph and time and
risk watches were such a big part of our industry
and a big part of society and held in high
regards in the general public. There was like a race,
kind of like the space race, but there's a chronograph phrase,
and it was Hoyer, Brightling and Hamilton that worked together

(09:06):
to produce an automatic chronograph and they wanted to be
Zenith and Siko. So you hear of the term first
market in startups or new products or innovation or R
and D. Here, first to market, and here's an example
where Hoyer, Brightling and Hamilton collaborated to make sure they

(09:29):
were ahead of the game, to make sure they were
first market before Zenith and Siko. So, getting back to
the Detroit Oil Show, funny, not one of us wore
a chronograph to that show. I did have the bulov
a driver's watch the computron, which was interesting because one

(09:56):
thing I enjoy about taking photos with my watch at
shows or any show, really is that some people are
trying to figure out what I'm taking a picture of,
and you can hear chit chat behind you, and it's
always funny to hear different things. But with the computron,
people were baffled. And I've heard maybe one or two

(10:18):
people figure out it's a watch, a digital watch, but
some people were looking at it because it was so
foreign to them, and they thought it was some type
of instrument to measure electromagnetic fields. Some people thought it
was some sort of Bluetooth link device to certain vehicles

(10:39):
to measure battery charge. And that's because I was taking
pictures of electric vehicles, so I could see maybe some
of the confusion there. I found it fascinating that number one,
the number of people man explaining to their friends or
to their partners about what they were seeing on my

(11:03):
wrist and totally being wrong. But number two, I found
it fascinating that something on your wrist can still spark conversation.
And since we're on the topic of the Detroit Auto Show.
I just got to say people there were extremely friendly.
It was the people that made the event, right from

(11:25):
when I picked up a media pass to going talking
to different car brands and going into different test vehicles.
A lot of these vehicles there you can be a
pasture on their test drives, and everyone was super friendly.
I gotta say, if you are thinking about going to
the Detroit Auto Show, you'll definitely feel welcomed. I gotta

(11:49):
say with the cars, the manufacturers that attended were small,
and even the ones that did attend brought a small
fleet of cars. It's not like in the past where
you could see every model in the lineup and you
could see every brand. It wasn't like that at all.
It was very small in that point. You might have
been disappointed. For example, I know if you're a fan

(12:14):
of European cars, there was Mercedes and BMW. I believe
BMW only had three cars there. Mercedes had four cars
and they were roped off and you couldn't even sit
in them. You couldn't even get five feet close to them,
which was disappointing because we wanted to see, we wanted
to talk to people and see if there's going to

(12:38):
be an analog timepiece in the car, but that didn't happen.
They did have EV vehicle test track, a Jeep test track,
a Bronco test track. I felt was very successful. It
got people into the cars to feel the cars and
actually experience what it might be like to own one.

(13:03):
The evs. I mean there's Mazda, Buick, Chevy, Volkswagon, Hailac.
I mean there was a few brands there is very
successful in my opinion. Overall, people super friendly. The people
at Lincoln were amazing. I was blown away how knowledgeable,

(13:24):
how friendly, they were, very professional, very courteous, and above
all they were just really you could see that they
believe in the brand as well. Hats off to Lincoln.
Walking through the show, realizing that we should have brought
chronographs to where we were reminded about some of our

(13:46):
favorite chronographs and we'll list it because they might be yours,
and if they're not. It's always a fun Google or
fun trip onto Corona twenty four to see what they're
selling for, if you want them, what you want them for,
or how they're not in your budget, how they are

(14:08):
in your budget. I mean, it goes on forever. Of course,
Omega Speedmaster Big. In the conversation we had well Omega
had a connection with Formula one, Omega had I'm just
going off the top of my head. We talked about
the Michael Schumacher collaboration. Another favorite that came up was

(14:30):
the Brightling. I I am a huge fan of Brightling
right now, I don't know how that happened. I'm falling
in love with the French brands. Actually, Chopart has a
wonderful chronograph and race centered. I believe it's the Immily Megly.
I'm sorry if I pronounced that wrong, but it's always
They have an annual race in Italy a vintage cars.

(14:53):
Chopart does a nod to them, a collaboration with them.
When I was taking photos, I really wish I had
a bold head, a bullhead from either the Bulova parking
meter or a bullhead from Citizen two chronographs that I
think would have actually sparked conversation because bullheads are cool.

(15:15):
I don't have one. I almost bought one, and now
I think maybe I have to put it back in
the shopping cart because the bullhead is pretty cool. At
the Auto show digital time pieces, I would have thought
a Cassio specifically g Shock a Mudmaster would have fit in.
They would compliment any electronic vehicle, I think more so

(15:40):
than a smart watch, just because if you look at
the mud Master, especially the Bluetooth ones, the g Shocks,
they have like a nice look to it that feels
like it would lend itself to EV's very well. Google
a few of those, I think you would agree. Other
famous chronographs, again, we talked about belln Ross. I believe

(16:02):
Handheart from Germany, a smaller Michael Brian has one, as
well as Graf Zeppelin. Some chronographs that are pretty cool
to take a look at. Of course, Kevin and Carroll
I know they would agree that infamous Rolex Daytona would
have been amazing at any auto show, especially the Detroit
Ali Show. Hopefully we'll be at the Toronto Auli Show,

(16:27):
maybe with a Rolex Daytona on our wrists. We'll see.
I'm curious to know if you guys have an opinion
on what kind of chronograph you would like to wear
to the auto show. Our next stop would be the
Toronto Auto Show, so let us know if you are
interested in more about the overlap between cars and watches.

(16:51):
We will be talking probably either the next episode or
the episode after that, some more overlap because I'll be
going to the Canadian International Toronto show. Hopefully the other
two can join me. And just to let you know,
our next episode will probably be some French brands. Again

(17:13):
reminded about the history of watch making and watch culture
and we cannot forget the French and I don't think
we discuss French brands, but I'm going to put it
out there. I think for the next episode, maybe some
French brands. I like French brands Carol and Kevin like,

(17:36):
I might include March Lab. They do have various movements,
one being a Swiss movement. I want to talk about
them briefly just because they were super amazing, super friendly.
I cannot tell you how nice it is to hear
people talk about their own brand with passion and not

(17:57):
get a sense of a sales pitch. I'll briefly talk
about them, but I but I mean, that's just one brand.
I mean I'm going to bring up and hopefully they'll
bring up a few French brands that that'll be fun
to discuss. I know some of the French brands I
bring up can be polarizing, but I think that'll be
a fun episode. Again, a huge thank you to Detroit

(18:23):
Autoschow for inviting us. It was fun, it was a blast.
I recommend it for everyone and as always, everyone where
your watches, let's make them a bigger part of our lifestyle.
I want more people wearing watches. I don't want to
hear people looking at my computron and thinking it's an

(18:44):
electromagnetic reader or bluetooth device to a battery displaying charge.
I don't want to hear that. I want to hear
people say, oh, that's a boulevook computron, Oh that's based
on the caskets, or that came around at the same
time as the castkets Gerard Perago. I want to hear
those types of chit chat chatters around my photo taking.

(19:05):
I also want to hear that, oh, yeah, do you
know j Lekotra made a lot of the dials and
et cetera, et cetera, and I would love to see
more people wearing chronographs. I would love to see more
people wearing watches. Hey, if you're at the Canadian at
the show where your watches, everyone take photos of your watches.

(19:26):
Create more conversation around watches. It'll be fun, and let's
face it, let's let's keep this mession alive. I mean
I want more cool watches. I want more cool chronographs,
and that only happens if more people wear them and
buy them. But that's it for now. We'll talk later.

(19:47):
Have a good day to keep