Standing ankle deep in mud during a light shower on a Thursday evening in northern Sardinia is quite an unusual way to discover a new watch. But this is what I needed to do to get a good wristshot of a new watch in its natural environment – set against the backdrop of a car flying through the air on the Ittiri “super special” stage of the Rallye Sardegna, much to the delight of the local fans.
Welcome to the World Rally Championship (WRC), the second biggest motorsport championship on four wheels after Formula 1. There are no VIP boxes, no pit girls and no celebrities here – justice, snow, mud, dirt or dust (depending on the season), die-hard fans (carrying around a 10-metre telescopic flag of Estonia takes commitment), edge-of-the-seat racing (on a rally stage there is no gravel trap; if you lose control, then it is usually with spectacular results) and something that almost resembles the popular small hatchbacks you can see driving around your local town (a Ford Fiesta, for example, but one that would cost 750,000 euros if you wanted to buy one, which you can’t).
You might think, therefore, that the WRC was no sport for a watch brand. But people said the same about Hublot and football. Despite being a relatively small brand with modest production volumes, Anonimo has big ambitions. The brand already has some important partnerships in the worlds of sailing, as the official timekeeper of the GC32 Tour, and motorsport, through its affiliation with the Leopard racing team. But the strongest signal yet of the 20-year old brand’s ambitions came at the start of this year, when Anonimo announced that it would be the official timekeeper of the WRC. In Sardinia, they presented the new Militare WRC Special Edition.
Buy this Militare WRC Special Edition
Since the partnership with the WRC was only signed last November, the watch has taken just six months to develop. Nevertheless, for Julien Haenny, Anonimo’s managing director, it was important that the watch show the usual attention to detail that Anonimo fans are familiar with. “We could have taken an easy route and just modified an existing dial,” he said, “but instead we decided to develop an entirely new dial and added a tachymetre. The silvered look is something new for us and each dial is hand brushed. The strap is also made of a combination of Cordura with leather inserts and it is fire-resistant, just like the racing overalls of the drivers in the WRC.”
For Julien Haenny, the rationale for the new partnership is clear. “It brings us excellent visibility in our key markets in Europe and in other important countries around the world. The WRC organisers also have some ambitious plans to extend the championship to other countries, which is obviously interesting for Anonimo as we look to expand.” Since the WRC offers live streaming and live timing of all rallies directly from its website, that excellent visibility has been easily measured over the first six months of this year. According to Mr Haenny, there has been a noticeable increase in visitors to the Anonimo website.
The Militare WRC special edition uses the black and green colour codes of the WRC, with a black PVD case and contrasting green accents for the small seconds sub-dial and hand, the chronograph seconds hand and the minute track, as well as a green start-stop pusher for the chronograph and green stitching on the strap. Equipped with a Sellita SW300 movement with a Dubois Dépraz 2035M module developed exclusively for Anonimio, the Militare WRC Special Edition offers a power reserve of 42 hours and is water resistant to 120 metres. Costing 5,250 Swiss francs, the Anonimo Militare WRC Special Edition is this the most expensive watch in the brand’s current collection. But for a special edition watch with these features, that’s still a reasonable price.
