There have been timepieces that occupy the intersection between automotive design and classical watch design for nearly as many years as there have been timepieces made for the wrist. But when your company is the Porsche Design Studio and your founder is Ferdinand A. Porsche, the man who created the Porsche 911, one would expect that the automobile influence on your watches would be somewhat more pronounced than most. Porsche Design watches have succeeded and failed at this mandate to varying degrees over the years (and over many partnerships, with established watchmakers such as IWC and Eterna), but with this year?s introduction of the Porsche Monobloc Actuator GMT, an extension of its flagship Chronotimer collection, the company hits a technological and horological home run.
Since Porsche Design established itself as an independent watch brand ? with its own Swiss manufacturing facility working in concert with its existing Austrian design studio ? in 2015, its watches have striven for a streamlined, Bauhaus style of design (appropriate for an iconic German brand name), and the Monobloc Actuator delivers in this area, but another term from the world of art can also be applied to this watch: trompe l?oeil, a style of photo-realistic painting that ?fools the eye.? At first glance, this watch’s curvilinear, barrel-shaped case, with naught but a small, knurled crown breaking from the smoothly flowing edge, fools the eye into into thinking that it is relatively simple...