Working with renowned furniture designer Werner Aisslinger, Nomos has announced a new model in its collection: the Autobahn. It is the brand?s first foray into the world of ?motoring watches?, and it is as unconventional in that regard as you might expect.

By Chris Hall

The Autobahn continues Nomos?s adventures in bolder, bigger, sportier watches. In 2017, it released a somewhat convoluted, but emphatically confident, array of casual sports watches in the form of the Club Campus and Aqua ranges. The Autobahn draws on some of the same design language with its use of bold block colours ? particularly in the blue and grey references ? and the size, which at 41mm is large for a Nomos.

Let?s get into the design in a bit more detail, before we talk about where this sits in the crowded genre of motoring watches. The case is a simple 41mm of round polished steel, with lugs that flow smoothly out from the body; the majority of Nomos watches favour a clean join between lug and caseband. The dial looks to have a pronounced concave shape; the brand says the rehaut evokes the banking of racing circuits. The same is true of the small seconds subdial at 6 o?clock. While it?s nice to have a bit of dial texture ? an area in which Nomos is traditionally quite flat ? let?s hope all that curvature doesn?t add too much overall thickness to the watch.

Along the rehaut is a simple minutes/seconds scale, with hour markers at 12, 2, 4, 8 and 10 within that. The type looks to be using a new type...