Giorgio Piola: Motorsport Watches From the Mind of an F1 Racecar Artist
Watches and racecars have been brothers-in-arms, design-wise, for nearly as long as cars have been on the road and timepieces have been worn on the wrist. In the modern era, the relationship between motor racing and timekeeping has gotten even more intimate, with watches developed in close collaboration with car manufacturers becoming more common: Hublot’s partnership with Ferrari springs to mind, as does Roger Dubuis’s team-up with Lamborghini, to name just a few. Giorgio Piola Timepieces, a new watch brand based in Miami, offers a new take on a racing-style watch, not from a car designer but from a fine-art illustrator who has spent 40 years capturing in his meticulous draftsmanship the high-octane essence of Formula One automobiles and their engines. Giorgio Piola G-5 Automatic Chronograph
“Illustrating Speed” is Giorgio Piola’s stock-in-trade, and the Italian artisan brings those sensibilities to the line of watches that bears his name, all of which feature a design aesthetic that is unmistakably motor-racing-derived and also, most would find, distinctively Italian. We got a look at two chronograph models from the collection, which also includes a three-hand with date and a ladies’ chrono (both powered by a quartz movement from Ronda). The Strat-3 series (below) features 46-mm sandblasted titanium cases with integrated rubber straps whose tread pattern recalls that of race car tires. The chronograph pushers flanking the screw-down cro...
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