The Goodwood Festival of Speed is one of the greatest celebrations of car culture in the world today and an important fixture in the British social calendar. Motor racing enthusiasts were entertained by some of the world’s most accomplished racing drivers taking on the famous Goodwood hill climb and Montblanc lent its timekeeping expertise to the many races with the four-day event culminating with the final 1.16 mile hill climb won by Justin Law in the Jaguar XJR12D with a time of 46.13 seconds. He was awarded a specially engraved Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph Automatic.
Montblanc presented the TimeWalker collection in the Montblanc Pavilion, where visitors discovered the brand new TimeWalker Chronograph in red gold and the TimeWalker ExoTourbillon Minute Chronograph Limited Edition 100 for the first time. Inspired by performance, these elegant timepieces capture the spirit and adventure of the early racing drivers seeking victory, their magnificent racing machines, and the passionate officials who meticulously timed them using Minerva’s precision instruments.
Racing has always been closely tied to the evolution of the chronograph. With the technology to record elapsed time, Minerva chronographs recorded great racing moments. Founded in 1858, the Minerva manufacture became an exclusive workshop where high-quality instruments for measuring brief intervals of time with precision up to 1/100th of a second were created. Minerva instruments became the reference in the field of timekeeping innovation, with numerous patents registered over the years in the domain of precision timers including the renowned “Rally Timer”, a stopwatch created to time motor racing with the utmost precision in 1960.
“With its first ever participation in the Festival of Speed, Montblanc ignites life and strong legitimacy to the concept of Spirit of racing introducing the new TimeWalker sport watch line” explains Nicolas Baretzki, Montblanc CEO. “As the definitive gathering for those looking to experience the epitome of Motorsport passion, Goodwood Festival of Speed was the perfect setting to introduce TimeWalker, our own watchmaking tribute to the glory days of motor racing.
The theme of the Festival of Speed in 2017 was “Peaks of Performance – Motorsport’s Game- Changers”, celebrating racing machines that were so fast, powerful and complicated that the rules had to be changed to rein them in. Montblanc presented the ‘Game Changers’ collection of 20 cars that best epitomise disruption in motor racing from the 1920s to the present day and the public chose the legendary 1986 Metro 6R4 Group B rally car as their favourite Game Changer. Its owner, Adam Keeler, was presented with a TimeWalker Chronograph Automatic featuring a special engraving.
