One of the last stops of the Formula1 circuit took place recently in America. The US Grand Prix F1 Racing in Austin, Texas, at the Circuit of the America’s race track, proved exciting and enlightening. Joining Armin Strom – Swiss watch Manufacture – gave us insights into how the F1 Teams and drivers spend their time.
In fact, the weekend included not only F1 racing, but also a tour of the paddocks and a behind-the-scenes trip to the Marussia F1 Team garage. Armin Strom has been sponsoring this team for several years now and even entered into collaboration with them to use spent car parts in the creation of watch parts for its Racing Regulator series of timepieces. The collaboration makes perfect sense, says Serge Michel, owner of Armin Strom. “Both watchmaking and auto racing are about precision and excellence. It is only fitting that we use certain parts in certain of our watches.”
Essentially the car engines are no longer viable after about 40 days of use, so Armin Strom has certain parts shipped to them for cleaning and production into watch movement parts – the ultimate engine-to-engine fabrication. The car parts are cleaned in a vacuum process at an industrial foundry in Switzerland, and then liquefied. The liquid aluminum alloy is transformed into blocks that are then milled by CNC machines into watch bridges that are then used in certain timepieces.
To many it may seem unusual that an F1 engine is useless after approximately 40 days of use, but these high-tech engines take a lot of fast-paced abuse. In fact, according to Ewen Honeyman, partner services director at Marussia F1 team, the team is allowed to build and use eight engines per racing year. It is also restricted on the number of tires it can use per race weekend and on other factors that play a role in racing.
Of course, only select Armin Strom watches utilize the F1 material bridges and parts. Since we were privileged to wear Armin Strom watches over the weekend, I went immediately to the Armin Strom Racing Regulator—with F1 parts in it. What better fit for a true track experience?
During the event, Michel and Claude Greisler, technical director of Armin Strom, discussed the design direction of the brand, which focuses on a visionary reinterpretation of the skeletonization work done over the decades by brand founder and watchmaker Armin Strom. Thus, each watch in the line features an intricately skeletonized dial that allows the components of the in-house-made movements to offer true depth and dimension. Armin Strom, makers of just about 500 watches a year, believes in showing what it makes – the movement.
Based in Biel, Switzerland, Armin Strom AG makes all of its own watches (including plates, bridges, levers, springs, wheels, pinion and screws) in house. The brand’s collection includes the Manual (three-hand time indication), the best-selling One Week (a seven-day power-reserve watch), the Racing (with F1 parts used in the movement), the Gravity, the Regulator, and the top-of-the-line Tourbillon (made in a limited edition). Additionally, each collection revolves around the four elements: Air (cased in light-weight titanium with white straps), Water (cased in steel with blue straps), Fire (cased in 18-k gold with brown straps), and Earth (cased in black PVD steel with black straps). The watches retail from $20,000 to just about $90,000 for the tourbillon.
Roberta Naas is the founder of atimelyperspective.com.
