Editor’s Note: Watches & Wonders (formerly SIHH) and Baselworld 2020 are canceled but that hasn’t stopped watch brands large and small from debuting their new wares. To stay on top of this year’s best new watch releases, visit our tag page.
Bremont’s ALT1 series watches are some of our favorite chronographs. Refined, built like tanks and handsome, to boot, they’re certainly not inexpensive, but they’re perfect for the modern adventurer who can afford to invest in best-in-class kit.
Nick and Giles English have just announced the newest addition to the ALT1 line, dubbed the ALT1-C Griffon. A tribute to a Spitfire previously owned by their father and now owned by Rolls-Royce, the ALT1-C Griffon pays homage more specifically to the PR Mk XIX, “the last of the specialized photo reconnaissance variants of the Spitfire, one of the few with a Griffon engine and arguably the finest of them all.”
Featuring a new dial and hand design based on military and aeronautical instruments and gauges, the ALT1-C Griffon is built into the famed Bremont 43mm Trip-Tick case with scratch-resistant, DLC-treated case barrel and 22mm lugs. Powered by the chronometer-certified BE-50AE automatic movement, the dial features a small seconds counter at 9 o’clock, a 30-minute counter at 3 o’clock, a date at 6 o’clock and hours, minutes and center chronograph seconds hands. Water-resistant to 100m, the ALT1-C Griffon costs $6,695 on a leather strap or $7,295 on a steel bracelet.
Also new in the ALT1 line is the ALT1-P2 JET, based on the ALT1-P pilot’s watch. Featuring a black DLC-coated case and black dial, the ALT1-P2 JET is a three-register chronograph powered by the BE-53AE automatic, chronometer-certified movement. For testing, Bremont teamed up with Gravity Industries, a company founded by British inventor and entrepreneur Richard Browning whose products include the Gravity Jet Suit, which “uses several miniature jet engines to achieve vertical flight.” (No, really — it’s a working jet pack.)
If strapping your pilot’s watch to a guy in a jet suit flying around an aircraft carrier isn’t the coolest watch test we’ve ever seen — not to mention the most quintessentially British watch test ever — we don’t know what is.
The ALT1-P2 JET costs $5,595 on a leather strap or $6,195 on a steel bracelet.
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