It’s me, Mark Stone, and in this episode of the Backseat Driver Podcast, I’m joined by Hamish Robertson from the Watch Collectors Club to explore the fascinating relationship between motorsport and watches, and how the two have become almost inseparable over more than a century.

With the practical role of timekeeping in early motoring, when dashboard clocks and specialist watches could be found in cars from manufacturers including Bugatti, Peugeot and Mercedes. From there, we trace the rise of the chronograph and its transformation into the watch most closely associated with racing drivers and motorsport enthusiasts.

Hamish takes me through some of the watches that helped define that relationship, including Heuer’s Autavia, Carrera and Monaco. We discuss Jack Heuer’s clever approach to motorsport sponsorship, his relationships with individual racing drivers and how Steve McQueen helped turn the distinctive square-cased Monaco into a cultural icon.

We also explore the extraordinary story of the Rolex Daytona, a watch that was not always particularly desirable but eventually became one of the most recognisable and sought-after watches in the world. Hamish explains how changing movements, dealers, marketing and celebrity ownership all contributed to creating the Daytona mythology we know today.

But motorsport watches are certainly not confined to expensive Swiss mechanical pieces. We discuss quartz and digital watches, including the remarkable durability of Casio’s G-Shock, and why accuracy and resilience can matter considerably more than mechanical tradition when a watch is actually being used in demanding conditions.

From affordable microbrands and heritage reissues to some of the finest examples of haute horlogerie, we look at the enormous choice available to enthusiasts today and why motorsport continues to inspire watchmakers at every price point.

We also discuss the growing community around watch collecting, the role of clubs, exhibitions and specialist shows, and how organisations such as the Watch Collectors Club are helping enthusiasts understand and enjoy the stories behind the watches on their wrists.

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Anybody who is into motorsport will have realized from the off that one of the most vital components besides the car, besides the driver, are watches, clocks and watches.

To a degree, Every modding team, F1 sports car endurance will all have a watch sponsor.

Not only is it good for the team to have a sponsor, but it's, it is vital.

Since time immemorial, racing cars and competition cars have been timed and nearly all cars have a dashboard clock.

Doxa made them for Bugatti, Peugeot, Mercedes.

The most famous ones are probably the Cartier set into the Maserati dashboards where they used to be and used to be able to take them out and carry them around as a pocket watch.

Which is why today I'm chatting with Hamish Robertson of the Watch Collectors Club.

Hamish, welcome to the backseat driver.

Thank you.

Delighted to be here.

Now, Watch Collectors Club.

I've been, I've been tossing up and I was quite surprised to discover I have eight watches.

Does that qualify as a collection?

Oh, yes, yes.

We say that anyone with more than one watch is a watch collector.

So anyone who's got a watch for a different purpose, they've chosen a couple to go with different outfits or different occasions.

One for work, one for the weekend, one for the gym.

We, we call all of those collections.

Right now I have one dress watch which is quartz.

I'm not a major fan of quartz, but.

And I have one, the ubiquitous divers watch which like most people who wear divers watches, I don't dive, but all my others are what you would call chronographs, motorsport related watches.

What tends to be the favorite watch for people involved in motoring or is there no such thing?

I think there is.

I think most people in most sports wear a chronograph or a stopwatch.

Yeah.

And certainly we'll come on to the heritage and the icons, I think that have based their whole success as a watch around their motorsport links.

Yeah, but it's definitely the idea of wearing a chronograph, timing yourself or timing the races you're watching.

And as time's going by, I mean, the other week I interviewed Ilias Strasses, who's just launched still, and they are dedicated to his passion for racing and his passion for BMW.

The one thing I noticed with chronographs and watches like that, there is a whole broad cross section of them of varying prices, of varying qualities.

Because one thing I have realized is a lot of the so called desirable watches, certain of them aren't as desirable as you might think.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I Mean how, how do, if somebody wants to get into all this, how do they go on about getting into it?

Well, I think the first thing to know is that there is a watch out there for everybody.

So you don't have to have a lot of money to buy a watch.

And nowadays there's this huge variety of watches at every price point in every category.

So even if we're just talking about watches inspired by motorsports, there are watches available at every conceivable price point.

So you can just go out there and type in, you know, motorsports watch for £100 and stuff will come up.

Similarly, you can go to the very top end and pay a fortune for Richard Miller and his most sports inspired watches.

So it's, it's, there is something out there for everyone.

There are a huge number of what are now known as micro brands which you just mentioned.

One Steel from Greece, where this is someone who's very passionate about something and wants to create a watch brand based on that passion.

In his case, as you said, BMW and Motorsports, another one based here in the UK that's very, very successful is a Molagato, entirely motorsports related quartz and mechanical watches.

So there really is something out there for everyone.

You just have to go and have a look.

And if motorsports isn't your thing, the same is true of every other category like dive watches you mentioned or even dress watches.

There's just so much out there now to look for.

The one thing I didn't realise until you told me then was a Malagato is English by its name.

You tend to think it's probably Ital but I mean we have in England.

Besides that we have.

I might be wrong but I think it's English.

Is Bramont and Christopher Ward.

Yeah, I mean we have a huge number of British brands now.

I mean huge.

So there really are options for everyone.

Yeah.

A monogata was set up by Shagami who lives in Windsor in the south of England.

And he set it up because he was really annoyed at how expensive all the merchandise was when he went to Silverstone with his boy.

And he was really upset because he could only afford the ticket, couldn't afford anything when he went there.

And he thought that what the world needed was a really affordable motorsports watch and he succeeded in building a company based on that from Windsor.

Right.

And yeah, the name was just to have the glamour, you know.

There's another, there's a company in Britain called the Great British Watch Company, you know, which has got Spitfire, sort of a historic aviation design thesis and the brand from British History so you can have very simple British names as well.

But he went for a mollegato because it sounded more exotic.

Yeah.

And it worked.

And he's got a great logo and his logo suits itself well to all the event marketing he does.

So he spends a huge amount of his marketing budget, almost all of it sponsoring races and that, that's how he gets his visibility around the world.

At racetracks.

Yeah.

Across motorsports events.

And if you talk to him he can talk to you for hours about, about that and his, his involvement, racing teams, racetracks and how it's been so successful for him.

Yeah.

Isn't it?

I'm.

I could be wrong.

Isn't it a molog auto that's incorporated part of the racing car into their watches?

Yeah.

So they did.

They've done a couple but the one most recent one was they used the carbon fiber from a brake disc to create dials which is really inspired.

So it's a lot of people over time have put bits of things in the back of watches but take a break disc.

I can't remember who, I'm not a big racing fan myself but.

And put it as the dial.

Polish it up and put it as the dial was really, really clever.

Yeah.

Now you did mention earlier on Richard Miller and if you can afford one of his watches you can probably afford any car you want.

But his watches tend to weigh in more than the average car costs.

How did he come about?

Well he.

Yeah.

So he's sort of a good example of a rich guy starring a watch company.

He'd been very successful in the watch industry and in something else.

I can't remember what it is.

And then he was a racer.

So he was a hobby racer himself.

Yeah.

And so he spotted that there was this gap for a high end watch that basically could be worn while racing, which we'll come back to.

But he wanted to make a really high end watch inspired by the aesthetic of high end racing.

Yeah.

And he did.

So he designed one and they made it of titanium.

The RM1 could look it up.

Titanium case was really unusual on the movement.

This shock proof movement was basically his sort of line to the market.

It was withstand much higher G forces than your average horse.

Yeah.

And being big personality and well known in the racing scene, his launch was successful and he's built on it from there.

And then he got into tennis most famously with Nadal and sponsoring him and having Nadal wear his watch throughout the whole game.

Yeah.

A great, great advertising success.

So that's, that's how he Got started.

His brilliance at selling things forever higher prices is sort of a different story in terms of building the brand.

But in a way he's the most successful brand of the 21st century.

And it's hard to say anyone else.

Yeah.

Has been anywhere close to his success this century.

I did meet him briefly, but the one thing that strikes me is there are people out there, but I mean the cost of them is astronomical.

Yes.

Yeah.

So they don't want to, they've never tried to sell that many.

They want them to be exclusive, they want people to wait for them, they want people to covet them, they want celebrities to see them as a status symbol so other people do.

And that was all part of the strategy from day one.

Yeah.

And the other racing brand that goes by the initials BRM of course, actually has nothing to do with brm, the racing car manufacturer.

But once again they, I will say, follow the Richard Milly style of.

They are unusual, aren't they?

Yes.

I don't know them that well.

I have met them once.

It's the French company you're talking about, isn't it?

Yeah.

And yeah, so they've done a very good job again in the same way.

So I think it was a racing family first and a watch producing family second.

Yeah.

And I think similarly, like most long time racing families, they've got a bit of money behind them.

So yeah, that's where they came from.

But they are, as far as I understand from their reputation, they're the real deal.

They are racers making watches inspired by their main passion.

Yeah.

Right.

So but I mean, does nearly every manufacturer have a chronograph in their range or do some just stick to, shall we say, more stylish, more elegant watches?

That's a great question and I hesitate to say yes, they all make a chronograph.

Chronographs are complicated and expensive and they're expensive both to make and to service.

So a lot of manufacturers have to think carefully, a lot of young brands have to think carefully if they're going to move into producing a chronograph.

And then of the established brands or the big, very big brands, most of them do because they want to cover all the parts of the market.

It also gives you a lot of design ideas.

So you've obviously got chronograph dials to consider, whether it's just the minutes to go there, a sort of sweep, seconds, hands, or you want to do minutes and hours for a long, what I used to call long, playing chronograph and now we just call it chronograph.

So a lot of watch makers and designers see the chronographers.

Yes.

Meeting market demand would be giving them some more design options.

Yeah.

So that's why they remain popular.

It's a bit like, you know, if a dive watch has to have a bezel and any given brand with any given aesthetic and brand identity, then having to think about a bezel and the features of a dive watch, you know, allows them to experiment with design or expand their design.

Yeah.

Range for their customers.

So I think that's why.

I think the other thing is certain chronographs in the past became really, really, really iconic.

And so in the 60s, when chronographs took off as a complication that people wanted, because before the 50s, they weren't a thing.

They were for very exclusive uses, you know, doctors, pilots and so on.

And then at the end of the 60s and into the 70s, we then started to get the real icons of the chronograph history.

And of course then, sure, another company that doesn't make one.

By the time all that's happened, you then think, right, I nearly really need to see if I can make a chronograph and see if I can launch one that becomes an icon or just because people are asking for it from my brand, because they're fans of the brand and they want one.

So that's what happened.

And it's a bit like your point earlier about dive watchers that never go diving.

The Dive watcher is the most popular brand watch of all because it has features that make it incredibly wearable.

It's very sturdy, it's robust, it's waterproof, and it's easy to read.

So guess what?

That's what people want from a wristwatch.

So chronograph is the addition.

It's.

Oh, it has a stopwatch on and it has an interesting design.

There's a bit more going on.

So it is as simple as that when it comes to why watches are more popular than other types of watches, not withstanding fashion in any given era.

Now, you mentioned dive watches.

The watch I wear a lot daily is a doxxer.

It's probably my least accurate watch.

I have to set it once a day.

When I inquired as to where, when I bought it or they said, that's quite acceptable for a doxxer.

But the reason I wear it is, as I said, they used to make dash locks for three miles.

Major brands.

And then, of course, I Know, they went out of business and they were brought back.

They made the watches for the famous French diver Jacques Cousteau.

But that's why I tend, that's why I wear that.

You can knock it about and it will stand up to everything.

But you mentioned iconic watches, iconic chronographs, and I think the most iconic of them all was, is of course the famous Rolex Daytona.

I mean, what.

Do you know what the story was behind that watch?

I do.

And it's only a recent icon.

So it's a 21st century iconic chronograph, is not really a 20th century iconic chronograph, which makes the story strange.

So Rolex made their first chronographs in the 40s.

I think there's a couple before then, but in terms of actually making them on purpose, it's the 40s and then into the 50s and up to the launch of what became known as the Daytona.

I think there's a fewer than a thousand in total across different models.

So a pre Daytona Rolex chronograph really is actually quite a rare watch.

Yeah.

And some of them beautiful and some of them a bit, bit dull across, across their Grangers.

And then they came up with the Daytona and the Daytona was thanks to demand.

So Rolex are always very, very sensitive to customer demand and the excellent company that they've, they've been for a very long time.

And so they decided to make a sports chronograph, you know, to go with their other tool watches.

Yeah.

And it's not entirely clear.

There's one advert where it was called the Le Mans.

There's only one known advert where it was published that went out saying it was going to be called the Le Mans and instead they called it this thing, which is a bit odd.

Again, they made up, called the Cosmograph.

Yeah.

Which is what it's called now.

So that was just them trying to differentiate themselves by name.

So I'm gonna get this wrong now.

So it's 60, 62, 63, I think it was launched.

And I'll keep talking but I'll see if I can find.

I can't find it.

But then did absolutely bugger all.

So it didn't sell very many at all.

And throughout the whole 60s and into the 70s and so the famous sort of Paul Newman design that is now the most valuable of the historic Rolex chronographs used to sit in dealers for years and not sell.

Then in the 80s they changed things up a bit and they decided that thanks to it being a bit of a poor seller, especially relative to things like Submariner and the gmt they needed to rethink.

So they went to Zenith and they got fantastic El Primero movement which has a higher beat rate, so it's 5 hertz, which means that it can time even on your wrist down to 10th of a second.

So they got that and then they put that in a new design ready for the 80s Daytona case and they kept these screw down crowns that evolved into the Paul Newman Daytona range previously because when it was first launched it didn't have them.

So they kept those to make these sort of iconic differentiated Rolex Daytona shape that we now know today.

That's been updated since then.

Yeah.

And then we get to the really puzzling bit of the story, which is what happened with the popularity of the thing.

So they in effected a concerted marketing effort to tell what clients that this was a hot watch and Paul Newman was a sort of living legend who had one and he was regularly photographed wearing it.

So somehow this worked.

And through the 90s, the reputation of the watch started to take off.

Rolex was obviously working hard to grow their own brand, their upgrades to the, you know, current collection.

Daytona moved to their own in house chronograph movement as well.

For the first time.

They started pushing it more heavily.

So the whole thing got more popular.

The story finishes with the auction of Paul Newman's Daytona itself, which sold I think for $18 million at auction and now resides in the Film and Motion Picture Museum in la if anyone wants to go and see it.

Yeah, that's the story of that icon.

And as I said, it was not in any way, shape or form an icon in the 20th century.

And nobody until this ever connected Rolex with chronographs because they didn't care about them.

They bought the movements in until the very end of the century when they bolted to design their own.

And it is a 21st century hype story as far as the Rolex Daytona is concerned.

If you want to talk about other important chronographs, including racing related chronographs, then there are many others to talk to, most notably the TAG Heuer chronographs.

But there are others as well, like the Mille Mia from Chopard and many more actually, if we put our heads together, we'll probably just two of us come up with quite a few more.

It's interesting.

I was going to bring up the tag, I think it's called back then when Steve McQueen wore it in the film Le Mans.

Of course it wasn't tag, it was just Heuer.

But I think that watch, I could be wrong, but I think that watch started the passion for people involved in motor racing to get maybe a chronograph, a multi sport dedicated watch.

I mean the single.

The images of McQueen wearing that watch in the film are unbelievable.

When I, I watch that film a lot, I can never, I never get bored of it.

But you look for when it appears, don't you?

Yes, yes, absolutely.

So the whole thing is, is earlier than that.

And it was because of Jack Hoyer.

So.

So Jack Hoyer was a racing fanatic.

His, the Hoyer company was successful.

They were wealthy, they were Swiss.

Jack was a young man and he liked motor racing and so he didn't race as much himself, but he liked the scene.

So at this time they were selling all the chronographs to the teams across almost all motorsports around the world.

They were the chronograph kings for timing instruments for industrial use and sports use.

And they had, had had that reputation for the whole first half of the 20th century.

Yeah.

Now this is the genius part was what Jack Hoyer would do was he would offer to sponsor the drivers, not the teams.

Right.

So the teams were again sponsored by, you know, Marlborough and cigarette companies and oil companies and all that, which is why we, we have the amazing liveries that we still enjoy today from the period of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and no one really cared about sponsoring drivers.

What Hoya did is he said to the drivers, I want to sponsor you.

Yeah.

And in the Carrera, the only people who got a solid gold Carrera were the AAN racing drivers.

And he gave them catch.

Yeah.

As well, but he gave them something no one else could have.

And it worked.

Yeah.

And then we come to the film that you just mentioned, La Mole.

And the story there is really fun.

So they got a call with like a week's notice that filming was going to begin and could they have a box of watches?

And so one of the staff jumped in the car from Switzerland with a trunk of watches, drove, got stopped at the border and had to pay like a 400 French frank import fee in camp, got up there overnight ready for filming and just sort of opened the case and said, well, you know, this is the, this is the Monaco.

This has been hit since we launched it.

For those who don't know, the Monaco is very, very important.

Not least because of its late, not because of its later phone fame, because it was the first watch or that Heuer and Buren and Hamilton and Breitling combined created the first European automatic chronograph.

So you had the El Primero from Zenith that year as well.

And then you had the Seiko's effort, which launched and all three launched in 69.

Yeah, the Monaco was the Heuer Breitling movement called the Chronomatic, that was the movement name, but the Tag Hoya, or at the time decided to launch with the name Monaco for obvious reasons.

And it was also square, which was completely radical and waterproof.

I was just going to say, is there any reason why they launched it as a square watch?

Yeah, well, it was because the Muuma was big, so they knew they had to do something bigger.

And they already have the Carrera and the Autavia, so they wanted something really different.

And square chronograph was born.

And again, hugely successful.

The end of the 60s into the 70s.

Watch design had got really radical over the 60s and lots of people were experimenting with lots of mad stuff.

If you ever want to see truly mad stuff from Omega, they're absolutely astonishing.

Some of the things they put out in terms of case shape and cushion cases, which is another style of case that's become more popular in the last 10 years or so, were hugely popular at the end of the 60s, early 70s.

And so to go that little bit further and make a sort of slab sided square case was a really good way of standing out.

I don't know how risky they felt.

It was Jaguar's autobiography, which is available for free online as a PDF.

He doesn't talk much about, you know, did they feel it was.

He talks a lot about the movement and the challenges of getting that working and reliable.

He doesn't really go into any detail about why they came up with the Monaco's design, you know, extremely, extremely alamod or fashionable dial design at the same time.

So I think, I think they just went all out.

They just said, well, if we're going to do it, it needs to stand out.

And it worked.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

And so then Steve McQueen loved it and the, obviously the, the film, as you said, hugely, hugely successful when it came out, boosting the popularity of Heuer watches for the rest of the decade.

Yeah.

Now it's like we're saying with Heuer and the motor racing and of course McQueen was driving the famous John Wire Racing Golf Porsche 917S when you drive down the Le Mans pit lane.

It's a good few years since I drove down the Le Mans pit lane.

But there used to be the Rolex clock Haib above it for timing the 24 hour.

I mean there are certain brands, I mean when it came to rallying in the 50s and 60s, and it's a brand that exists today but doesn't seem to have the prominence it did do was Longines.

I mean, are Longines still involved in motorsport?

Do we know?

No, no, they're not.

So they, I made a strategic decision a while ago, some time ago.

Well, I don't know what year they made it.

Well, they made it publicly, but they are in plenty of other sports timing.

So the biggest one that they dominate is horse racing and skiing, which, for which they do almost all branded ski timing.

So no, it was.

They chose to leave in a similar way as Rolex chose to leave Formula one last year, start of last season.

So yeah, I think just different trends, different positioning, different strategic choices.

Yeah.

Now one brand that does seem to have made a bit of headway in motorsport and they are, they are one of the most robust watches you will probably ever buy are Casio.

And I mean they weren't originally known for watches, were they?

They were, they just produce electronic instruments.

But the G Shock has become an icon in its own right and is very affordable.

Oh yes, 100%.

Yeah.

So Casio, Casio is an instrument technology maker.

Yeah.

And they, they were one of the first brands to succeed in making low cost digital watches back in the early 80s.

So the history of digital watches is very interesting.

So first we had electronic watches, a whole range of different kinds, and then the invention of the LCD screen in the late 70s and its subsequent collapse in price meant that the Japanese in the 80s could conquer the world with these low cost digital watches that we know today would have LCD screens on, which then, yes, in time led to the G Shock because the designer of the G Shock dropped his watch and it smashed to pieces and was very upset with himself and so decided he wanted a watch that could be dropped out of a window.

Basically, so that was the requirement.

How do you make a watch module whether it was LCD or mechanical, but that was the challenge.

10 Liter drop test and the G shock ended up being the answer.

So digital module, as everybody will know, and then a rubber case, basically a rubber cushion inside the outer second rubber case so it has the construction.

You can see the blow ups on the exploded diagrams online.

Whether it's on the current website, I don't know.

But they're easy to find with all the case components and if you go into the store they sometimes have them exploded there and that was the idea.

So if you have a very well made digital module that doesn't, you know, leak or have any compromise on the solder and then you put it in basically two sets of rubber with a steel case back, you've got an extremely, extremely robust watch.

And then it was a huge hit straight out of the door, unsurprisingly.

Again, modern looks, you know this, the rugged black original version was a very sort of stylish, rugged watch at the time and not too big.

So there are plenty of G shocks that are very, very big in the range that followed us and are available now.

But the original one is a very sort of good all rounder size and yeah, huge, huge success.

And again, you know, if you're going to go racing or you know, riding a motorbike or something and you want a vibration free watch, then kind of one of your best options is a decent detail watch.

I know lots of people who've ridden bikes and driven lots of things in mechanical watches.

Sure.

But in the long run those levels of vibration you are going to be servicing any watch, including Richard Miller, a lot more things with it rather than a digital watch that doesn't have the moving parts.

I mean you mentioned that a great friend of mine who is French, he's a bit more cash than I have.

His family have three chateaus, so he's not without.

But he is an entrant in rally raids including the Dakar.

And normally if we're knocking about, he wears a make of watch that you and I also wear.

He wears a Mi Amiglia Chopard, but when he's competing he wears a G shock.

And I just said, I said why?

Why the G shock?

He said, because no matter how wet it gets, how covered in sand it gets, how the vibrations it's subjected to, he said it never ever stops.

He said, and it's always accurate.

He said you can wipe the dirt off it, the oil off it, the sand off it.

Look at it.

He said, you know full well the time it's telling you is the correct time.

Yes, exactly, yeah.

And I mean G Shock have a range called the Mudmaster, which kind of explains it all.

And of course that dive watch is called the Frogman.

I would point out as well, when you look at the world of military watchers and we're doing a military watch exhibition next year, which I'm very excited about, in May in Leeds.

Military modern military spec watches are usually quartz, all digital.

So I think the US issue the G shock, I think it's the Seals or the Marines issue the G Shock.

But people in the uk, the watches that are actually issued are usually quartz watches.

And when you speak to the companies that you know, whether it's Elliot Brown here in the UK as well, working with the Marines down on the south coast, they do make some mechanical watches.

But when you hear about the requirements and you hear see what gets issued, it's often a quartz watch or a digital one.

Now this brings me to the question.

I have one quartz powered watch and it happens to be my dress watch, so it doesn't matter if I don't wear it that often.

Be quite honest, I don't go to events where I need a dress watch very often, but which I still prefer.

Do people prefer mechanical or quartz or is there a, shall we say, an even split between them?

The only thing I know is a quartz watch when it's up and running is probably more accurate than a mechanical watch.

I mean, it's far more accurate.

It's like 100 times more accurate.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't think it's an even split.

I think globally the vast majority of watches that are sold on an annual basis are quartz.

The Swiss export numbers for mechanical watches are now falling consistently for a long time now.

And the microbrand world that we mentioned earlier, that's these movements made in Japan and China mostly is growing fast.

But I think overall, I would think that mechanical watches as a caspi isn't growing in total.

Yeah.

When it comes to accuracy.

Yeah.

There is, there is no question a bog standard quartz movement will be more accurate than most mechanical movements.

Yeah.

That's just because of the timing and it's just the mechanics of it.

It's much, much, much harder to keep a small wheel that rotates six or eight times a second reliable for years than it is to have a quartz crystal with an electronic circuit.

Yeah.

Creating a tank run by battery.

And then you've got some fun things like the ultra high accuracy quartz like the citizen which is accurate to a second a year.

Oh, so you pay a lot for that movement.

It's a beautiful watch, cost about two grand and it's a second a year quartz accuracy.

Yeah.

But as I point out to people, you know, if you ever travel and the clocks go back, you know, you might be changing the time on your watch once, once a month or once every other month anyway, if you travel abroad, and then twice a year anyway for the clocks changing.

So once a year, one second a year is more than even a quartz wearer is going to need.

Yeah.

And then, you know, people ask, you know, this, this, the invention and development of solar power quartz movements for wristwatches, which is now 40 year old.

We're celebrating citizens 40 years of the eco drive.

Yeah.

You know, with modern electronic manufacturing, the fact they've been doing it for the years, Japanese levels of quality control, it's not unreasonable to think that's a watch that could outlive you in terms of keeping weight as long as it had solar power.

Yes.

The capacities that they eventually wear out, or a wire might, a solder might come come loose or hands might, you know, grind off a bit.

But it's just not unreasonable to think it might keep ticking much longer than you with modern manufacturing standards.

And the same for solar powered digital watches today, with much less likelihood of LCD leakage.

Whereas any mechanical watch needs servicing, it's got oil in it like a car engine, and that oil will dry up and when it dries up, the parts rub against each other and wear out very quickly.

So mechanical watches are about the craft, they are about the fact it's mechanical, they're about the tick.

The tick, you know, and so it's, it's a different product and it needs looking after in a different way.

Yeah.

And for the same reasons.

Even if you've got the most incredibly engineered movement crafted by an expert and regulated by an expert, it's never going to be quite as accurate as a quartz watch and definitely not as a digital watch.

So, yeah, that's, that's the reality.

So I suppose Japanese watches are like Japanese cars.

The one thing about most Japanese cars is they are incredibly reliable.

They may not be the most beautiful to look at, but they invariably are, are the most mechanically reliable, even though they aren't quartz operated.

I mean, it's quite interesting is that.

But one thing I do know, one watch I intend buying is I've always liked Hamhart, which was, I've always been told it was the watch Steve McQueen, to return to him, he wore Those by choice.

But that is a retro watch.

I mean, is there still a market for retro watches?

Is there still the liking for retro or do people, especially people into motorsport, prefer modern watches or modern looking watches?

Oh, there's a huge market for more historic, inspired designs.

Absolutely huge.

Yeah, yeah.

And whole brands built around it.

So I don't know what the percentages are.

I don't even know if anyone has the data.

Yeah.

In terms of style of watch, really, but absolutely huge.

Whether it's, as you say, people like Hanhart in Germany making watches inspired by aviation themes from pre war, whether it's people restarting defunct brands that were popular in last century with updated materials but identical aesthetics.

Then you've got reissues of Longines, do an amazing range of reissues from that, their back catalog.

You know, literally there's sort of four or five at any one time in the Longines and it's called the heritage range, but it's a brand new watch made, it's a brand new spec with brand new movements in, but trying to get as close to their historic models as possible.

Yeah.

So if you go back to that heritage range over the last 20 years, there's some absolute stunners and then loads, loads of brands reissue, reissue watches.

Now somebody wants to get into all this.

As I said, you're the main man with the Watch Collectors Club.

Is it a club you have to join?

Well, we appreciate it if you'd like to join, but you don't have to join to come to an event.

So we run a lot of events in London, Manchester and Scotland.

We have three shows where you can come and look out and buy new watches.

But our club events are really just about coming and learning more and exploring, talking about what you're interested in, seeing what people brought along from their own collections and just, yeah, really great place to start if you're new or if you've been collecting a while.

It's a great place to come and have your eyes open because you know someone will bring something along that you've never seen before and of course usually let you try it on and see how it feels.

Yeah, so no, you don't need to be a member.

We just appreciate it if you come along.

You like what we do, that you do sign up.

We're an inclusive, so whatever you're into, whatever your starting point, you're very welcome.

We're not a luxury watch club.

We're not a fancy watch club, we're a watch club for everyone.

We have, we've had themed meetups around G shocks and swatches before.

We've had events.

Our shows facilitate, you know, micro brands starting out with very low price points and then we've done high horology stuff on Bond street in London and we take people to Switzerland every year now as well to see, see the brands there.

Just, just there last week for a fantastic week in Geneva seeing some incredible timepieces of very high value.

So we, we try and cover it all and everyone's welcome.

Now you mentioned you have a show coming up in Leeds, but you've won before that.

You have one in Manchester in November, don't you?

That's right.

Very, very exciting.

We, our biggest Show yet, the third year in Manchester, the Bridgewater hall on Saturday 7th November from 10 till 4.

We've got about 50 brands will be exhibiting on the day.

Tickets are just 12 quid and kids, kids go free student tickets available and yeah, tickets are on sale now.

It's going to be a fantastic day.

I mean the really nice thing about doing the show Manchester has been from the start just how warm and friendly the community is.

People are there.

Some people come and hang out for the whole day because there's a bar in the show as well.

And it's just about the opportunity to see, see hundreds and hundreds of watches from brands from all over Europe, all different kinds including motorsport related and loads and loads of chronographs, but also, you know, just come and hang out and talk about watches, see what other people are interested in as well.

And if somebody wants to find out more about the club, what's the website?

It's very simple.

It's just the watchcollectors club.com you'll find everything on there.

You'll find our show pages, you'll find our calendar of events across the country.

They've got plenty coming up this autumn new thing we're doing, which is first time next month, is a day all just about solely focusing on watch photography.

The world's first ever day dedicated to photographing watches close up photography with professional photographers leading that and then as you said, the show and then next year we'll be doing three shows which are Glasgow in May, Southampton in July and Manchester in November.

Right.

And all being well, this year I shall be meeting up with you and the exhibitors at Bridgewater hall in Manchester.

But until then, Hamish Robertson, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting to you about a topic and a subject that's very close to my heart and should be close to every motorsport enthusiast heart.

But once again, Hamish Robertson, it's been a pleasure.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

I really enjoyed our conversation and I think we've amply demonstrated how many different things there are in the motorsports related to talk about as many we didn't.

And yeah, I'd love to see any of your listeners at one of our events.