Wilhelm Schmid: Where Fine Watchmaking Meets Automotive Excellence

While the bosses of many lesser brands were confined to hotel suites during this month’s Geneva Watch Days, A. Lange and Sohne CEO Wilhelm Schmid was revealing the German maker’s latest creations beneath sun-filled skies in the expansive grounds of one of Britain’s greatest houses.

And he was well and truly in his element, because this was the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace, an annual show of blue-chip classic cars of which A. Lange & Söhne is the headline partner.

Very much a case of ‘the right crowd and no crowding’, it was the perfect place at which to debut two new watches for the delectation of an audience with an appreciation for examples of exceptional engineering both large and small.

Two New Watches in a Palace Setting

The first was a fresh interpretation of the 1815 Up/Down power reserve model, 300 examples of which will be made with pink gold cases and 300 with white gold, both with new dials in a delectable grey-blue shade.

The second, meanwhile, was a new take on the spectacular Triple Split chronograph, originally launched in 2018, which enables the measuring of intermediate and comparative times with an aggregate duration of up to 12 hours thanks to its two additional rattrapante hands with flyback.

While the inaugural Triple Split was cased in white gold and a second model, introduced in 2021, in pink gold, this third iteration gets a 950-platinum case and a rhodium-coloured dial with grey hands. Just 100 will be made.

Both reveals drew a steady stream of visitors to the A. Lange & Söhne booth, near to which was parked Schmid’s personal classic car (or one of them) - a unique, 1956 AC Ace originally shipped from the AC factory in Britain to Venezuela.

It was subsequently raced there having had its bodywork extensively modified by German engineer Karl Pentz to improve its aerodynamics. The car remained in Venezuela and entered long-term storage before being bought back to Britain during the 1990s by AC owner’s Club registrar Tim Iles.

Iles had it meticulously restored, but retained the unique Pentz bodywork and returned it to its exact original shade of red which it still wears today under Schmid’s ownership.

A CEO With a Passion for Classics

As he shows me around the car – which came complete with a vast archive of paperwork and period photographs detailing its South American racing history – Schmid’s true passion for classics is decidedly evident.   

And that’s not surprising, since he is not only the son of a garage proprietor and the former head of sales and marketing for BMW South Africa, but also a confident engineer who is perfectly comfortable working on a personal stable of classics which includes another AC Ace, a 1954 Frazer Nash, 356 and 911S Porsches and an MGB roadster that he has owned for more than 40 years.

As a result, he knew from the outset that events such as the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court attract some of the world’s most valuable automobiles and their high-profile owners – which is why he brokered the brand’s first concours partnership (with Italy’s Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este event) soon after becoming A. Lange & Söhne’s CEO in 2011.

He added Hampton Court in 2018 and, three years ago, the Audrain Concours in Newport, Rhode Island.

Why Cars and Watches Make Perfect Companions

“It certainly helps with being involved in these events that I like cars, because it demonstrates a degree of authenticity beyond just giving money in support of them,” Mr. Schmid told me during the show.

“But the main reason we are involved in concours shows is that, 16 years ago, we were looking at what we could do to attract people we may not know in order to show them the watches we had to offer.

“We soon realised that classic cars and our watches have timelessness, uniqueness and stories in common. And all classic cars and all of our watches have been created through skilled hands, careful design and exceptional craftsmanship.”

Schmid believes the three concours events which his brand now sponsors represent a perfect balance, with each bringing audiences which, while regionally different, have the all-important love of cars and watches in common.

“I know for sure that our presence at the shows has brought us new clients because, if you are true collector, you have a habit of becoming quickly addicted to anything new that truly excites you. And it is far easier for someone who already loves mechanical objects to appreciate what we do than, say, for someone who is purely a collector of conventional art.

“If we launch a new watch at a concours event, we often catch a fresh audience without in any way moving away from what we are, which is a watch maker that’s recognised by connoisseurs.”

And for Schmid, it’s a case of ‘next stop – Newport’ for the 2026 Audrain Concours on October 1.

Although the event was only founded in 2018, the area’s connections with cars go right back to the dawn of motoring with the first Vanderbilt Cup taking place in Newport in September 1900 when Willie K Vanderbilt and a few of his well-heeled chums competed against one another by driving their newly-imported automobiles around the Aquidneck Park horse racing track.

Combine that history with Newport’s first-rate motoring museum, a slew of historic mansions and its backdrop of the rolling Atlantic Ocean and it comes as no surprise that the Audrain Concours and Motor Week, like Hampton Court and Villa d’Este, is somewhere A. Lange & Söhne wants to be….