iW Magazine Winter 2020 | Page 75

The Lucerne-based
watchmaker accelerates
into high gear with a
new watch that shifts the
look of the brand’s well-
known regulator dial from
traditional to sporty.
CHRONOSWISS
LAUNCHES A RACING REGULATOR
BY MICHAEL THOMPSON
AFTER EXPANDING THE REGULATOR CLASSIC COLLECTION WITH A NEW
BRACELET, shorter lugs and more dial options last year, Chronoswiss late in
2019 unveiled the Regulator Classic Carbon Racer. The new model is
essentially an enhanced 41mm Regulator Classic model with a high-
tech carbon mesh dial and an Arabic-marker dial some would liken to a
speedometer.
And while a regulator dials were historically placed on reference clocks
for use by watchmakers to quickly read the time while setting new or
repaired timepieces, the regulator here easily serves as a visual stand-in for
a speedometer, especially given the automotive font used on the dial.
Chronoswiss encourages that comparison further by designing a dial that
gathers colors typically associated with motor sport: racing red, white and
black carbon.
Chronoswiss has devised a customized triangular hand shape it calls
Trigono, and both the minutes and hour hands are generously set with
SuperLuminova inlays while the running seconds hand is racing red. That
color matches the minutes track around the dial. A swatch of red between
the 7 and 9 numerals has been specially added to echo speedometer-
revving indicators.
Perhaps the remaining classical feature here, besides the large
Chronoswiss onion crown and the partially knurled case, is the central
guilloché pattern on the dial that purposefully contrasts with ultra-thin
carbon fiber surrounding it.
As a final touch to the sportiness of the Regulator Classic Carbon Racer,
Chronoswiss opens up the seconds subdial to display a gear designed to
recall a racecar tire rim. The movement attached to that gear is the C.295
caliber with stop seconds, an ETA-based caliber altered by Chronoswiss with
a proprietary regulator modification.
As is standard for Chronoswiss, the movement is visible through the clear
sapphire caseback, a feature that Chronoswiss pioneered for wristwatches
in the 1980s. Chronoswiss sells the new Regulator Classic Carbon Racer with
either a steel bracelet or a rubber strap. Price: $4,750.
WINTER 2020 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 75