Simon de Burton delves into Porsche Design’s watches
If you’ve ever been inside a Porsche Design store, you’ll know that they can sell you anything from a coffee machine to a multi-million-dollar penthouse apartment. But it all started with the Chronograph 1, which was the first product to be created after the Porsche Design studio was set up in 1972 by the holder of the pen behind the 911: Ferdinand Alexander ‘Butzi’ Porsche.
As many a Porschephile will know, Butzi embarked on the enterprise after Ferry Porsche, his father and the son of Porsche founder Ferdinand the elder, became so exasperated by family infighting that he banned relatives from holding executive roles within the main company.
Despite it being Butzi’s initial stab at horology, the watch was one of the most groundbreaking sports chronographs ever seen. For a start, it was the first all-black wristwatch – both bracelet and case – to have been created anywhere, by anyone. Its dial, inspired by the speedo and rev counter design of the 911, also concealed the first examples of the Valjoux 7750 movement, an early self-winding chronograph calibre that came to be regarded as a benchmark mechanism used in numerous other important watches such as the Breitling Navitimer and Tissot PR 100.
Today, original Valjoux-powered versions of the watch are quite rare. The movements became commercially unavailable in the mid-’70s, causing Porsche Design to switch to the equally revered Lemania 5100 mechanism. Ultra robust, it necessitated a new dial layout for the Chronograph 1 that introduced a 24-hour subdial at 12 o’clock instead of the Valjoux version’s 30-minute counter.
In those early days, Porsche Design watches were made for the studio by Orfina, a Swiss-based firm owned by the celebrated Italian racing driver and Porsche works team member Umberto Maglioli. The relationship with Orfina lasted until 1978, when Porsche Design partnered with IWC in a 20-year deal to produce a string of innovative models that started with the nifty Compass watch.
Another innovative timepiece, it combined Porsche Design’s contemporary aesthetic with not one but two precision instruments: a three-hand watch movement and, as the name suggests, a directional compass. Launched in late 1978, the Reference 3510 ‘Kompassuhr’ was made available in both black and military-spec ‘NATO Olive’. Its 39mm case was hinged to reveal the compass and, despite featuring no fewer than four sapphire glasses, it was just 12mm thick. The obvious problem to overcome was that both the case and the movement needed to be sufficiently anti-magnetic to avoid sending the compass off-kilter. To do this, a two-tier arrangement was created using a special hardened aluminium alloy while the automatic movement within was upgraded by mounting its winding rotor on anti-magnetic bearings.
The original Compass model paved the way for further Porsche Design creations along similarly imaginative lines such as the Reference 3551, another compass watch with moon phase indication. Several more chronographs followed, including one launched in 1980 as the first watch with a titanium case, as well as a series of remarkably advanced diving watches such as the Ocean 2000 that was declared waterproof down to a bone-crushing 2,000 metres.
In 1998, manufacture shifted to the historic Eterna brand, which was acquired by Butzi three years earlier with a view to providing greater independence. Although early offerings were similar to some of the IWC designs, the Eterna-built pieces gradually took on their own look in collections such as the ‘Flat Six’ range and specific, highly technical models that included the £100,000 ‘Indicator’ of 2004 – the first mechanical chronograph with a digital elapsed time display and colour-coded power reserve subdial.
The Eterna years also saw recreations of the Chronograph 1, the Titanium chronograph and the compass watch between 2010 and 2011, with the 40th anniversary of Porsche Design being marked by the P’6500 Heritage Collection of 100 sets of three watches. Original models included 2007’s futuristic Worldtimer and the decidedly unusual Diver, the latter featuring a case that hinged out from a surrounding framework as a safety mechanism to prevent the diving bezel and crown from being accidentally moved while underwater.
The death of Butzi in 2012, however, coincided with the sale of Eterna to Chinese jewellery and watch giant Citychamp. At this point, Porsche Design took watch development in-house, continuing to conceive watches in its longtime home of Zell-am-See in Austria but making them at a dedicated site in Solothurn, northwest Switzerland. The move provided the opportunity to create customer-specific watches along the lines of the car division’s Exclusive Manufaktur offering and another recreation of the Chronograph 1, this time using authentic Valjoux movements but incorporating a choice of additional materials including rose gold and carbon fibre.
Other models of the past decade have included the 1919 Collection that celebrated the year in which Butzi’s much-loved Bauhaus art school was founded, and the technically impressive Monobloc Actuator which heralded a new approach that saw a collaboration between Porsche’s Development Centre Weissach and the Porsche Design watch teams in Austria and Switzerland. The 45mm titanium case featured a ‘rocker switch’ pushpiece that was inspired by the valve train of a 911 RSR race engine and fitted flush with the right side of the case when not being used.
Subsequently, Porsche Design progressed to developing and building its own movements which have achieved the benchmark COSC chronometer testing standard and, in a bid to give its watches maximum appeal to an increasingly younger breed of Porsche car buyer, introduced more car-specific offerings. Among the first of these were the 911 Turbo S Exclusive Series of 2017 that incorporated carbon fibre and paint used in 911 builds and the 2018 Chronograph 70Y Sportwagen PCA Edition made just for members of the Porsche Club of America and fitted with a Fuchs wheel-shaped winding rotor. Since 2020, there has also been a full-scale, custom-build programme that uses a digital configurator with 1.5 million potential combinations to enable Porsche car owners to specify a watch to directly match their vehicle by customising everything from the case and bezel to the hands and strap.
At the time of writing, however, Porsche Design’s most coveted model is the one that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the legendary 930 Turbo. With its fat wheel arches, whale-tail spoiler, blistering acceleration and a top speed of 150mph, the Turbo became a design classic and prompted a special-edition watch based on the Chronograph 1.
Limited to just 500 examples, the ‘Chronograph 1 – 50 Years 911 Turbo Edition’ features a lightweight titanium case treated with scratch-resistant titanium carbide. The dial recalls the trio of instruments behind the steering wheel of the original Turbo, complete with the same white hands and indexes, while a crimson chronograph hand mimics the red of the car’s speedo and tachymeter needles. The instantly recognisable ‘Turbo’ logo decorates the sapphire crystal caseback, beneath which sits an automatic winding rotor based on the Porsche’s famous Fuchs road wheels – complete with tiny centre crest. A beige-coloured leather and textile leather strap, meanwhile, recalls the colour of the first Turbo production car and also gets a ‘Turbo’ logo, with each of the 500 available watches being delivered on a blackened titanium bracelet. Butzi would surely have loved it…
This feature was written by Simon de Burton and first appeared in the January 2025 issue of our monthly Club magazine, Porsche Post. to receive your copy, as well as enjoying a host of exclusive member benefits and savings.