Monthly Archives: June 2017

Bremont – Norton Evening

This week I was lucky enough to be invited to Stuart Garner talk about the re-launch of Norton Motorcycles and their co-operation with Bremont watches at the Bremont boutique in London.

If you have been reading my previous entries you might will have realised this for me is the perfect combination of my interests, not only watches and motorcycles but British watches and motorcycles all presented to me on my birthday.

Stuart Garner – Norton Motorcycles

I have for sometime been sceptical about brand partnerships as some of the connections seem a little tenuous. At  a superficial level I had already accepted there might be justifiable link between these two companies, after all many watch companies are involved in motorsport.

In the quarter of an hour before the start of Stuart’s talk began I had the opportunity to chat with Simon Skinner, an actual motorcycle designer, the person responsible for the Norton V4RR.

Norton V4RR – the actual TT Bike

Simon, or Skinner as Stuart refers to him, is one of those people clearly doing a job he really enjoys and is very proud of what Norton have achieved in such a short time.

I also had the opportunity to try the limited edition Bremont V4 Limited edition watch.

Bremont Norton V4

This watch is a limited edition of 200 for general sale. It combines numerals similar to the classic Norton typeface with gold chronograph borders, a gold Norton logo, and again housed in a beautifully polished Trip-Tick® three-piece case.  It uses a modified calibre 13 1⁄4’’’ BE-50AE automatic chronometer with 42-hour minimum power reserve.

The back of the Bremont Norton V4

The display back shows off the special rotor, replicating the motorbike’s disc brake, very nicely.

The watch has a coated polished stainless steel case of Bremont Trip-Tick® construction. It is water resistant to 10 ATM, 100 metres. The racing strap isPerforated black calf-leather with red stitch and a polished stainless steel pin buckle.  This is the second watch celebrating the relationship between the two companies, the first one coming out in 2009.

So you are asking what do the two companies have in common. Well they both are making a big effort to re-build a skills base in the UK in two industries that had been pretty much wiped out. This is something that I  think most people would agree is worthwhile. Both companies are especially doing this through the development of apprentices. The Norton approach of getting their training scheme to be self funding by producing the spoked wheels struck me as being particularly interesting.

Finally came the highlight of the evening. firing up the TT bike outside the Mayfair showroom.

This is my recording of the sound, unfortunately my second best, my big finger cancelled the best one by mistake.

Thank you

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rise of the low-cost mechanical watch

 

Marloe Cherwell

It always happen, I read the FT most days when I’m having my lunch, simply because it is there in the office. Every once in a while an article on watches pops up. Well here is one I missed because I was travelling, this is real “sod’s law” especially as the article heavily features British watch brands Marloe and Farer, I don’t approve of bloggers just nicking other peoples work, especially that of professional journalists so her is a link to the article.

https://www.ft.com/content/beeab33e-1dd6-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f229c

Enjoy

Hamtun – deliveries

A few days ago I am sure I saw the news that the British kickstarter watch brand Hamtun were starting deliveries. Now, I have searched every where to find out more, but have been unlucky.

I did however come across this review on Youtube so I thought it might be useful to post it to remind you of this great looking watch.

So I hope I remembered correctly and some customers will now be receiving their watches.