Chopard has been sponsor and official timekeeper of one of the world’s most prestigious endurance races – the Mille Miglia – since 1988. Every spring, more than 400 vintage vehicles set off on the 1000-mile journey from Brescia to Rome. What has become an accepted connection between the Geneva watchmaker and the classic car race was born out of Chopard co-president Karl-Friedrich Scheufele’s passion for classic cars and the world of motor racing. His appreciation of fine machinery and sporting performance inspired a range of watches: the Mille Miglia.
The 2016 Mille Miglia collection comprises “his and hers” chronographs inspired by classic cars that raced between 1927 and 1940. The usual features of the collection are all present and correct in the Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph for ladies, although with a feminine touch thanks to a judicious choice of colours and materials: mother-of-pearl dial, white strap, diamond-set bezel and 39 mm steel case. The men’s version comes in a 43 mm steel case, and features a tachymetric scale that can be used to calculate average speed as a function of the time taken to travel a given distance.
On the black dial, two baton-style hands coated with SuperLuminova point to the Arabic numerals (also filled with SuperLuminova) indicating hours and minutes, while a red-tipped central hand counts off the seconds. The slender cursive typeface is inspired by the dashboards of the late 1920s. Finally, the iconic “Rosso Corso” red arrow-shaped logo is visible front and centre of the dial at 12 o’clock, as well as around the edge of the transparent caseback.
These new “his & hers” chronographs are fitted with the distinctive Mille Miglia rubber strap, reminiscent of the Dunlop tyres used on racing cars back in the day. Both timepieces come with a sapphire caseback giving an unrestricted view of the automatic chronograph calibre. This COSC-certified movement offers hour, minute, seconds and chronograph functions along with a date, and has a 42-hour power reserve.
