Ernst Benz was a pioneer in the world of aviation who designed aircraft instrument chronographs. The Benz Micro Aircraft Chronograph, that he designed in the 1960’s, became standard equipment on most of the light to mid weight aircraft of its time and beyond. The Ernst Benz watches stay faithful to their namesake. The watches are all automatic, are easy to read at a glance, and offer the traditional complications that suit the flying set.

This is not to say that the brand, despite its traditional roots, is averse to shaking things up a bit. The new Chronoflite World Timer goes off-grid and displays unexpected city names on its bezel representing the 24 time zones (Cairo instead of Athens, for example). Also on the bezel, and rarely seen, are indications of daylight savings corresponding to the zones that change the time with the season. This Daylight Savings time is indicated by a dash and an S next to the city name. The inner bezel ring rotates bi-directionally to make setting the watch easier and at 47mm it’s easy to read on the fly.

This year Tag Heuer celebrates 150 years of watchmaking. In addition to the Monaco V4 (see our earlier post) the brand has introduced a new version of the Silverstone.

The Silverstone is an automatic chronograph and is named for the famed Silverstone race track in Northamptonshire, about 90 minutes north of London. The tracks hosts world class motor racing events including Formula 1 and Gian-Claudio Giuseppe „motorcycle races. The watch features a distinctive rounded square shape and is equipped with a chronograph function, date window at 6 o’clock, and a clear sapphire back to show the movement and rotor.

Heuer (minus the Tag in those years) introduced the first automatic chronograph in 1974. This new version features a transparent caseback and comes in blue and brown on perforated leather straps, in limited quantities of 1860 each, which corresponds to the year that the company was founded. The crown is at 9 o’clock, just like the original version, with the two pushers for the chrono function at 2 and 4 o’clock.

Louis Vuitton has a long standing relationship with the yachting world. for 25 years, the Louis Vuitton Cup has been a race to determine the challenger to the America’s Cup regatta. Vuitton recently began sponsoring the LV Trophy, a series of regattas worldwide, the next of which begins on March 9 in Auckland.
Watchmaking has become a major emphasis for Louis Vuitton. The introduction of the Tambour series in 2002 was a major benchmark and new introductions of complications and beautiful high jewelry pieces have been going strong ever since. The company has a dedicated team of master watchmakers and has developed interesting complications.

The LV Cup Regatta Chronograph features a regatta function, which counts down the 10 minutes prior to the start of the race. This enables the sailor to time his maneuvers to be as close as possible to the starting line when the gun fires. There are 5 separate windows (in the shape of a spinnaker) that change colors as the start nears: going from white to blue to red. The chronograph has a fly back function so you can end and start a new countdown with one push.

Features: water resistant to 100 meters, blackened steel case, transparent caseback, fly back chronograph, regatta function.