This Year’s Coolest Affordable Watch Under $1,000 Is Surprising in the Best Way

Tour Auto is a road rally with 290 teams of classic cars competing over the course of a week across 2,500km of French roads from Paris to Biarritz.

The 2026 event this month marks the fourth consecutive year that French microbrand Baltic is the event’s official timekeeper, so to celebrate, the brand has launched a limited-edition collab that is absurdly cool and surprisingly affordable.

And no, it isn’t a wristwatch.

Start your engines

Baltic

Back in 2024, Baltic launched a Tour Auto collab as a set consisting of a special version of its Tricompax chronograph (now called the Scalegraph) along with a “Dash Timer” consisting of both a stopwatch and a clock in a metal insert intended to be installed in a car’s dashboard.

For 2026, Baltic has ditched the wristwatch element and is instead offering a new commemorative “Rally Timer” dash clock and stopwatch combo as a standalone product for the first time.

The Rally Timer consists of two 60mm x 18mm handheld watches in stainless steel, both with 12:00 crowns, domed Hesalite crystals and matte light blue dials with a crosshair motif, dark blue printed Arabic numerals in an open-style font and lumed, blue needlepoint hands. The blue shade was inspired by the colors used in the historic Tour de France Automobile, the race that ran annually from 1899 and 1986 upon which Tour Auto is based.

Baltic

One half of the Rally Timer is a dash clock featuring a cream-colored small seconds display at 6:00 with a red crosshair graphic. It’s powered by the manually wound Engloong Calibre 6497 movement with a 42-hour power reserve.

The other half is a stopwatch with a center-mounted seconds counter and a cream-colored 30-minute totalizer at 12:00 with five-minute intervals demarcated in red, navy and sky blue. It features a single prominent chronograph pusher at 10:30 and has a flyback feature, powered by the manually wound Hanhart Cal. 122 movement with a power reserve of 6 hours.

Baltic

Both watches have solid casebacks, but with decorations unique to each. The dash clock features the Tour Auto 2026 logo and the limited-edition number out of 300, while the stopwatch depicts a map of France showing the route of the rally from Paris to Biarritz, with some notable stops along the way.

Both come mounted on a steel structure that’s intended to be installed in your car’s dash, though both watches are also easily removable for handheld use.

Baltic

Availability and pricing

I have no use for this Rally Timer from Baltic. I currently drive a 2017 Honda CR-V that I share with my wife. But I’ll be damned if I don’t find myself seriously pining for this thing. I mean, look at it. Not only is it achingly cool, but it’s just beautiful.

It sits at the intersection of watch and car enthusiasm without overdoing it. It’s the kind of product that makes you feel like a cooler, more adventurous person than you are just by owning it.

And that brings me to perhaps the best thing about Baltic’s new Rally Timer: It’s shockingly inexpensive to own. The price is just €825.00 (≈$965.25), which I understand is a lot of money for a product that isn’t super practical, but that could be said about any mechanical watch. This feels like it should be priced in the thousands, and even then, it would still sell out.

This has to be the coolest watch I’ve seen this year priced under $1,000, but there is a catch (isn’t that always the case?). Baltic is making just 300 Rally Timers, so if you want one, I suggest acting quickly. These are sure to disappear in a hurry.

Baltic

Baltic Rally Timer Tour Auto 2026 Limited Edition

• $965.25 at Baltic

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