Have you ever wanted a Ferrari LaFerrari, but decided not to buy one simply because there was no matching wrist accoutrement? Worry no more, as this week Swiss watchmaker Hublot announced it was releasing a new watch to accompany the latest and uber-iest of all the uber-Ferraris.
When the Ferrari LaFerrari came out, I thought it just wasn’t possible to create a more awkward name for something with gears in it. I mean, we know it’s a Ferrari, that’s why it’s called Ferrari. And “la,” well, that just means “the.” So it’s the Ferrari TheFerrari, or the TFTF in my mind. Remind me to hold some sort of contest where we come up with a better Ferrari-themed definition for that acronym. The prize will be... nothing, of course. I may make you a fine paper hat.
For those who already have all the paper hats in the world, however, and all the Ferrari LaFerraris, for that matter, you need something special. Something so special that, when a man walks into a room, everyone instantly knows that this man has just dropped over a million dollars on an amalgamation of rubber and tin and exquisitely manufactured carbon fiber. Something that makes his mortal peers tremble and quake, because they only have a McLaren P1.
That brings us to Hublot, who has created something for just that person, the one with the many fine hats and and many Ferraris and many Ferrari the Ferraris and other things Ferrari with ungainly names: the Hublot Masterpiece MP-05 “LaFerrari.”
Yes, you know it’s a masterpiece because it says Masterpiece, right there in the name. That’s how you know.
And so you can know many other things besides, Hublot deigns it appropriate for you to know how many things it shares in common with The Ferrari The Ferrari, notwithstanding its vaguely McLaren-sounding name. It has eleven barrels. Each barrel has its own cylinder. A rubber strap. Seriously, check the press release if you think I’m making this up.
We can make jokes and jokes all day about this particular ridiculous watch, but that would be unfair. (Not to the watch, it has no feelings.) It would be unfair to us, as there are many more watches out there, — each finely paired with a car and usually only purchased second-hand by those without that car — that we can both examine and appreciate for how ridiculous they are. So that’s what we’ll do.
Parmigiani Fleurier Bugatti Type 370
If we’re going to talk about weird, fanciful, and sometimes unobtainable watches, we should start at the top. The Parimigiani Fleurier Bugatti Type 370 has a strange French-Italian hybrid of a name like Mr. Ettore Bugatti himself, but this watch is completely Swiss.
Only available to Bugatti Veyron owners, it is perhaps one of the few watches meant to be actually worn while driving, the watch face is actually horizontal- all the better for you to be able to look at it with your arms outstretched and your hands gripping the wheel.
That’s also why it’s pretty gross. You’re driving along at 250 mph, and you need to check the time on your bulky and weird-looking watch? That’s just... wrong. I'm pretty sure that at over a million dollars, the Veyron has a clock.
Urwerk UR-CC1 “King Cobra”
A horizontal speedo can convey a sense of both time and place. A Buick Skylark from the 1970s, for example, had a beautiful one. Cruising down the street, watching it sweep from side to side as you move from light to light is a beautiful thing. You might as well hear the Eagles wafting out of the 8-track without even realizing it. The same goes for the digital version that you find on a Honda S2000. Conceived twenty years later, you know exactly what vehicle you’re sitting in from the moment you get behind the wheel.
The Urwerk UR-CC1 is neither a Buick Skylark nor a Honda S2000, but a watch that you put on your wrist. It conveys only the time, but not an era. And it sits there, on your wrist, while you gradually get more and more sweat on it each instance someone asks you what time it is. Because you can’t read it. Because it’s too big, and there’s no hands, and there’s no digital readout, and because you should’ve just bought a regular watch.
Hublot Aero Bang Morgan
Before Hublot created The Ferrari The Ferrari watch, it created this, the Aero Bang Morgan.
Created to celebrate the launch of the Morgan Aeromax, it has none of the features Morgans are actually known for. Every Morgan is known for looking like it was designed in conjunction with the Supermarine Spitfire, and to this day they are made by hand out of wood. The Aero Bang as none of these characteristics. None of the retro design, none of the wood, and certainly none of the Britishiness. And with 400 more of these made than the 100 Aeromaxes, it makes you wonder who these watches were actually for.
Audemars Piguet-Millenary Maserati MC12 Tourbillon Chronograph
What in the world...? Is that thing lopsided? It seems to have some sort of... growth on the side of it. I’m not even sure what’s going on here. I just know that there’s a lot of gears, and somehow Maserati seems to be involved here. As the Audemars Piguet-Millenary Maserati MC12 Tourbillon Chronograph cost $284,000, I’m not sure I need to know what’s going on here. Or ever will.
Shinola Ford Uh... "Watch"
And for those of us who can't drop the kind of cash to buy a house on something that will just tell you if you should be having lunch right now or not, there's this. I would say what "this" is, but it doesn't seem to have a fancy official name. Those are reserved for the nobility, I suppose.
What it is though is a watch. Nothing more, nothing less. Well, it's got a little horse on it so you can tell people it's for your Mustang. At the low-low price of $700, however, maybe this is one we can all get behind.
Suggest your ultimate in tacky car-watch pairings in the comments below!
Photos credit respective manufacturers