THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WATCHES AND CARS HAVE BEEN THERE SINCE THE BEGINNING THEY COINCIDE IN TERMS OF THEIR BIRTH (AT THE TURN OF THE 20th CENTURY) AND THEIR PROGRESS AS DESIRABLE CONSUMER PRODUCTS.

FOR PEOPLE WHO VALUE FINE WORKMANSHIP AND ENGINEERING MARVELS, AUTOMOBILE COLLECTING AND WATCH COLLECTING COMPLEMENT EACH OTHER THE WATCH COMPANY HEUER FIRST GAINED POPULARITY BY PROVIDING WATCH CLOCKS TO LEADING AUTOMOBILE COMPANIES. THESE CLOCKS, TAKEN OUT FROM THE DASHBOARDS OF THE OLD LIMOUSINES, ARE NOW HIGHLY COLLECTIBLE. HEUER ITSELF HAS BECOME POPULAR OVER THE YEARS AS A RACING DRIVER'S WATCH BRAND WITH SUCH MODEL NAMES TIED UP TO CAR RACING SUCH AS THE MONACO, CARRERA, AND CAMARO.

GOING BEHIND THE WHEEL

DURING the 1930's to the 50's, when American watch companies such as Elgin, Gruen, and Hamilton dominated the watch industry, they produced watches designed with the driver in mind. There are examples of the watch cases being extremely curved so that these can be worn on the edge of the driver's wrist facing the driver to make the watch easier to read while driving. The Gruen Company even marketed their driver's watch as the Gruen Curvex, not only did it have a curved case, even the movement was amazingly curved! It became very popular model and it's now a highly prized collectible item. In the 60's, Omega came up with its Chronostop driver's model which could be worn on the underside of the wrist. The 12 o'clock position was located at 3 o'clock to accommodate the driver's need for positioning the watch's start and stop pushers for his convenience.

A more modern example of a driver's watch is the 1980's Seiko Speedmaster. The main feature of this design is the entire watch face can be swiveled to make it face the driver without having to take it off the wrist. Another example of a design that lets the driver take his eyes off the road for only a split second to check the time is the Panerai This extra large watch is made of nonreflective crystal, and with highly legible hour and minute markers, it is the favorite among both drivers and watch lovers.