The world’s First Modern Diving Watch
(Opening picture: Captain Robert ‘Bob’ Maloubier © Blancpain) 70 Years Of Fifty Fathoms Pioneers of civilian aviation in the 1950s and 60s envisaged future air passengers would be businessmen and never foresaw the rise of the package holiday tourists that fill the aeroplanes today. There are parallels in the watch industry with many timepieces originally […]
How To Survive Growing Up
With a Swiss dad and an Indian mum, Maximilian Busser’s childhood was not a walk in the clouds. Solitary and by his own admission weird, it wasn’t until he turned 20 that he accepted and started to love who he was. The seed was planted for the birth of MB&F 18 years later, a company […]
Greubel Forsey GMT Sport “Dark Earth”
The new Greubel Forsey GMT Sport – which I’ll call “Dark Earth”, is a continuation of the marque’s GMT line and at the same time, it represents a notable departure. There was always something unique about the Greubel Forsey GMT complication: the GMT display was a real-time rotating globe, offering a view of each time […]
The New Mercedes GLB
Mercedes have once again surprised us by bringing to market a compact SUV that fits seven people and doesn’t look the size of horsebox. A little trick up the GLB’s sleeve is its wheelbase. At 2829mm, it is the longest in the Mercedes compact car stables. Tall passengers needn’t worry either, there is plenty of […]
Lotus: Back on Track
From the famous ‘Seven’ to the all-electric Evija hypercar, Simon de Burton charts the rise and fall and rise again of one of Britain’s best-loved car marques. Today’s cars are considerably more powerful than their equivalent models from the past but, rather like today’s people, most have also become noticeably larger and heavier. It’s a situation that might […]
Bentley at one hundred: Accelerating forward
Bentley’s centenary year has had a Janus face aspect to it: looking forward to sustainability and zero carbon emissions, while learning from their past craftsmanship and engineering. In the same year, Bentley produced the futuristic EXP100, their vision of the car in 2035; they completed or inaugurated projects that examine the cars of yesteryear; and […]
Only Watch Becomes “The Only One”
Patek Philippe, Christie’s and the Charity triumph in 2019! For an event born out of tragedy, the auction room at Christie’s in Geneva had a raucous and rambunctious atmosphere on November 9th. OnlyWatch, a biannual auction by most of the world’s premier watch brands has become a staple of the watch and auction calendars. Now […]
New BMW Series 1
It has been 15 years since the first BMW Series 1 rolled off the production line. From the beginning it was a commercial success, even if its design was not what one would have expected from BMW. The second generation of the Series 2 launched in 2011 cemented this slightly aesthetically challenged car as BMW’s […]
Go Green with a GoCycle GX Electric Folding Bike
GoCycle is a company going places and so are the people buying their, quick folding electric bikes. The latest model from the British brand is the GX which can be folded in ten seconds. Cycling has been the transport of the masses for over a hundred years and its popularity grew through necessity. People needed […]
Turning Back Time: Greubel Forsey’s Fait Main watch
The definition of handmade (English for fait main) in the Swiss watch industry is becoming a nebulous term. Increasingly, the integration of complex machines for watch cutting parts and an ability to cut them accurately has led to the diminution of hand finishing and manufacture in watches. Initially, that’s how all watches were made, with […]