Is the car industry borrowing a page from the high-end watch industry playbook? For 2014, Jaguar will be literally reproducing six “copies” of its iconic Lightweight E-Type race cars built in the mid 1960s. In essence, the plan is sort of romantic if it were not so darn expensive, and along for the ride is English watch maker Bremont with some limited edition watches. The first of the new Jaguar Lightweight E-Type cars will be debuted at the Pebble Beach 2014 Concours d Elegance auto show event. Each of the six cars is claimed to be priced at around $1,680,000.
Between 1963 and 1964 Jaguar was supposed to build 18 of the “Lightweight” E-Type cars but it only ended up building 12 of them. In order to be lighter than the standard E-Types these special E-Type models were produced from aluminum and had a range of other minor techniques designed to save weight. All of this was for on-track racing performance. For 2014 Jaguar will complete the original 18 E-Types with six more cars that follow the original chassis numbers and be built to the “exact specifications” of the originals – albeit it with a series of bespoke customization options for the customers.
In celebration of this interesting production, fellow English company, Bremont, will produce some watches that mimic the distinctive dashboard instrument design of the E-Type cars. The limited edition of six Bremont Lightweight E-Type Chronometer watches will be produced exclusively for each car, and have matching VINs for each of the vehicles. However, the watches will not come with the new Lightweight E-Type cars, although the owners of each will have the right to purchase the matching watches before anyone else does.
Watch lovers will recognize the movement inside of the Bremont Lightweight E-Type watch as the same that they used in their recent Wright Flyer watch – the new partially in-house made caliber BWC/01 that has some British made parts along with a La Joux-Perret base. The beautiful movement has a new custom rotor meant to look like the steeling wheel of the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type car and is said to actually contain some of the original aluminum metal used in 1963 on the production of the original cars.
The Bremont Lightweight E-Type Chronometer watch comes in a 43mm wide case in 18k white gold and is very attractive with the dashboard style dial with the colored “redline” which is part of the tachometer gauge the design was based on. The Bremont logo shares space with a historic Jaguar logo. This is not the first time Bremont has worked with the car maker, as they have done some projects together in the past for concept cars.
This is an interesting watch and I think with some more pieces like this, Bremont could gain footing in the automotive community as well as the aviation community where they currently have much of their focus. At the same time, Bremont is keen to connect with other British icon brands and Jaguar is perfect for that. We anticipate the price of each of the Bremont Lightweight E-Type Chronometer watches to be in the vicinity of $40,000. bremont.com