Some watches are easy to pinpoint the era in which they were made. Certain design elements speak to the trends of the day, clearly linking them to specific decades. Other watches, are total anomalies. They seem to have been created in a vacuum. A space where no influences were allowed to come in and disturb the creative process. The Bulova ?Parking Meter? Chronograph from 1973 is one such watch.

A dramatic design that featured one of the world?s first automatic chronograph movements, it?s a watch defined by several unordinary elements. First, it was a bullhead chronograph, meaning the pushers were positioned at the top of the watch, like little ?horns.? Always unusual, it gives chronographs an aggressive look and makes them feel more like stopwatches off the wrist. This was additionally emphasized by the crown at six, on the opposite side from the pushers, a result of the modular design of the caliber 12 movement at use. Second, the Parking Meter featured a still unique-to-this-day blue metal bezel. A frame that follows the distinctive lines of the case, protruding out to meet the crown and pushers in their unexpected locations. This detail gave the case a pronounced ?Y? silhouette, which the designers then pull into the dial for a truly strange and wonderful layout, which earned the watch its nickname.

A two-register chronograph, it features sub-dials at six and twelve. Rather than your typical circles, Bulova went for an applied plate with a rectangular lower portion an...