MONTBLANC EXPANDS ITS TIMEWALKER COLLECTION WITH NEW ADDITIONS, INCLUDING THE TECHNICALLY ASTUTE TIMEWALKER CHRONOGRAPH 1000 LIMITED EDITION 18
HISTORY BUFF
Minerva, one of the watch manufactures under Montblanc’s banner, has an incredible history of making stopwatches for sporting tournaments. In the year 1916, the manufacture created a device capable of recording time up to 1/100th of a second—a stellar achievement back then. Inspired by these pocket watches, the Montblanc Timewalker Chronograph 1000 Limited Edition 18 can measure intervals of—you guessed it—up to 1/1,000th of a second. It’s not an unprecedented record, as the Tag Heuer Mikrogirder can measure intervals of 1/2000th of a second, but it is certainly a feat that cannot be scoffed at, especially when you take into consideration the level of mechanical mastery required to engineer a “simpler” chronograph that records times of 1/6th of a second.
2 RACING ELEMENTS
Harkening the heydays of motor racing, the Timewalker features a number of design elements that allude to its sporting influences: a palette of black with red accents abound, while the power reserve indicator at 3 o’clock and the second indication at 6 refer to old-school fuel gauges and dashboards, respectively. The black alligator strap too comes with red perforations, reminiscent of the driving gloves of yore. It’s a monopusher chronograph, meaning that only one button is used to start and stop the function; the monopusher is located at the top of the timepiece, a throwback to traditional stopwatches.
The ubiquity of the chronograph belies its complexity in construction. We break down the reasons why these time tickers caught our eye at the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie