AMERICAN BRAND
verifies the positon of the time belts. What?! Time belts? You read
that correctly. The Tread 1 is powered not by a mainspring or an
escapement, but by a belt, as in a car. You thought it was called
Tread by accident? American consumers weren’t the only ones
intrigued by the Tread 1; it’s “engine” also woke the sleeping Swiss
giants. In 2012 the watch was selected to compete in the prestigious
Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, making it literally the only
U.S. watch brand to receive this honor. Maybe it’s time we looked at
that backstory now.
Ten years ago, Devon founder Scott Devon, with a background in the luxury goods business, took a foray into the world
of supercars: as in producing a supercar. His first project was the
Devon GPX, which set a set a lap time record at the Laguna Seca
racetrack. Life was good, and he had plans to build 10 to 20 GPX’s
a year, only the market didn’t cooperate. Crash went the housing
bubble, and plans were shelved for all aspects of the supercar except one: the watch that was to be an accessory. In the course of his
travels Devon met with a car designer from Honda who had worked
on a project developing watches driven by belts. The concept stuck
with Devon, and he pushed the pedal down. Devon was now a watch
company.
Moving from concept to production was a challenge. Devon
spoke with Swiss watchmakers who felt that it was all too complicated. In short, they didn’t feel that there was enough power in a
belted movement to make the mechanism work. Undaunted, Devon
applied what he had learned from the auto business to his watch.
He had experience with hybrid cars and battery technology. He
knew that the solution did not have to be absolutely one thing or
another. It could be electromechanical. And the masters of electromechanical solutions weren’t working in the watch industry. They
were working in aerospace.
The engineering in a Devon watch represents what can happen
when the usual suspects issue a proclamation that “something can’t
be done.” Devon worked with an aerospace engineering company
TITANIUM FASTENERS
98
WRISTWATCH | 2016