Some folks won’t wear the t-shirt of the band they’re seeing in concert. How about wearing a watch based on the car you’re driving?
We’re not sure if the metaphor stretches from music to sports watches and the cars on which they’re based? But in the case of the Porsche 911 GT3 and – you’re never going to believe this name – the Porsche Design Chronograph 911 GT3, each item seems worthy of ownership independently.
On its own merits the new PD Chrono, while not quite as iconic as the PD Chronograph 1, is a techy, sport-forward timepiece. The flyback chronograph features the brand’s caliber Werk 01.200 automatic movement: COSC certified for exceptional accuracy, a middling 48 hours of power reserve, and a date complication. This would be an easy, fashionable, extremely well-built watch to wear every day.
You can even see the automatic movement through a sapphire case back display, including a rotor that’s shaped like the wheel of your particular GT3 or GT3 Touring, if you happen to be an owner. And you’ll have to be, at least before examples hit the aftermarket; Porsche and PD will only be offering the watches to GT3 customers. In fact, and totally in keeping with the history of Porshe Design offerings like this, the watch is very customizable to match a particular car. And this is where things start to get difficult for us.
Remember those home makeover shows where the owner was surprised by the renovation? The show team would always find one hobby or sports team affiliation or something, and do an entire room in a heavily literal interpretation. “We heard you love the Green Bay Packers so we made you your own ‘Pack Place’ mancave/garage!” Some highly customized versions of the PD watches have a whiff of that.
This GT3 Chrono is pretty cool if you’re into function-heavy watches with a sporting ethos. We do like the design as shown in some of the press photos, where the customizable colored ring is white or black. Now, change that ring to one of the lovely colored paints Porsche offers for the GT3 (or, heaven forbid, a paint-to-sample hue) and the balance of this already busy dial can get thrown out of whack.
I’m sure loads of people enjoy matchy-matchy elements like the wheel-shaped rotor, Porsche Design has been doing offerings like this for a while, after all. And some of the special editions work better than others for me; your really enjoyed wearing the Chronograph 1 911 S/T for a week last year. But if we were feeling flush enough to spend an extra ten grand (the GT3 Chrono goes for $10,767) on top of the $220K+ we’re dropping on the 911 GT3 itself, here is a list of Porsche Design watches we’d pick first:
Chronograph 1 2024 Hodinkee Edition
I’m not slavish to the guys at Hodinkee – though I have enjoyed the website over the years and I do own one of their special edition Swatches – but I think they nailed it with this PD collaboration. Minimal touches to the classic Chrono 1 include aged lume, a cool Japanese date wheel, and a chronograph hand-matching red “H” in the totalizer that’s just exactly the kind of stupid detail nerds like us enjoy.
These went for $9,650 new and there are a few available on reselling platforms for about $8K right now.
Orfina Chronograph 1 “Top Gun”
Tom Cruise wore the Orfina-built Chrono 1 in his role as Maverick in Top Gun, back in 1986. This is really the OG of PD watches, and also has a claim to be the first all-black, PVD-coated watch (we haven’t ever verified that as a fact, but it’s repeated on the internet ad nauseam). If you can find one powered by the iconic Lemania 5100 chronograph movement, in good or even rough cosmetic condition (they look great with some patina), you’ll have yourself the horological equivalent of an air-cooled 911.
Values are all over the place, but it woudn’t be hard to scoop a nice example for well under the fake $10K budget here, maybe $4K-$5K.
IWC Porsche Design Compass Watch Moon Phase
For reasons that still pass our understanding, in the late 1970s Swiss watchmaker IWC teamed with Porsche Design on an automatic watch with a compass hidden inside. An impressive technical feat – getting a magnetic compass and a highly sensitive mechanical watch movement to function in tight quarters is wild – the watches also featured a minimalist design that’s still exciting today.
As if that weren’t enough, some of the compass watches also boasted a moon phase complication at the top of the dial, and rendered in the same, elegantly simple styling language. This is an odd-duck watch, to be sure, and a really exciting one to any enthusiast who recognize what they’re seeing.
At the time of this writing we can’t even track down a listing for this rare watch. A few years back Hodinkee sold a nice one for $4,400 – something in that range feels correct for a hard-to-find watch with a limited audience.
