When a watch design lasts for long enough, it tends to expand beyond the obvious aesthetic options, eventually becoming a canvas for more out-of-the-box creativity and visual expression. As a staple of the brand’s more sporting side for nearly a decade, the Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Power Control line is a textbook example of this trend in action. With the broader Mille Miglia line’s deep, authentic connections to the world of car culture, it’s no surprise that these visual evolutions often take a racy yet considered bent, and the brand’s latest effort takes this trend a step further by bringing this design off-road. Developed in partnership with renowned watch customizer Bamford Watch Department and field-tested by company founder George Bamford across the arid dunes of Baja California, the new limited edition Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Power Control Bamford Edition “Desert Racer” pushes the impact and visual aggression of this clean, muscular design further than ever before, with a design that punctuates its utilitarian matte finishing with blasts of audacious color.
While the form and dimensions of the Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Power Control Bamford Edition “Desert Racer” may be familiar to fans of the brand, this 43mm-wide bead-blasted titanium case still offers a markedly different look on the wrist to its predecessors. The basic case form here is clean, athletic, and almost monolithically simple, with chunky squared-off lugs, tightly packaged vertical case sides, and a surprisingly slender black aluminum bezel insert. While the mirror polishing and bright brushing of this case in steel tend to emphasize the design’s mass on the wrist, the same shape in matte titanium carries less heft both visually and literally. The uniform finishing also works to highlight some of the visual nuance of the case, particularly the compound curves of the abruptly downturned lugs. Black DLC on both the low, wide crown guards and the gear-toothed crown help to push these elements into the background on the wrist, further simplifying the look, while the addition of bright hazard orange for the bezel’s minutes scale gives the otherwise muted case a well-placed visual punch. Around back, Chopard fits the watch with a smoked sapphire display caseback, and rates this model for a respectable 100 meters of water resistance.
Chopard continues its mostly muted, matte approach with the Mille Miglia GTS Power Control Bamford Edition “Desert Racer,” but amps up the intensity significantly through the judicious use of accent color. The main dial layout is decidedly stealthy, opting for medium gray dial text atop a strongly grained matte black dial surface. The pointed applied indices and tapering sword handset follow suit here, with matte gray surrounds and lume fills in low-visibility matte black. Despite this low-contrast look, the dial is still reasonably legible thanks to intelligent use of texture – the grainy matte black of the dial interacts with the light in a markedly different fashion to the smoother matte gray hands above. Naturally, however, it’s the use of searing neon orange that truly steals the show here. The Mille Miglia GTS Power Control’s characteristic oversized, sporty applied Arabic numerals at 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock are made even more prominent in this variant thanks to this vivid hue, which further aids legibility by immediately orienting the dial at a glance. Further orange accents on the outer seconds track and matching orange hazard stripes on the central seconds hand make even fine details easy to read, as well. This same hue extends to the watch’s familiar 9 o’clock retrograde power reserve subdial, further emphasizing the sporty fuel gauge-esque feel of this element on the wrist. Although the use of orange on the cutout 3 o’clock date display does help tie this complication in with the overall layout, it’s arguably too small to truly counterbalance the other elements of the dial design, which may leave some enthusiasts with an impression of lopsidedness. Overall, however, this dial design is an aggressive, charismatic tonal shift from the rest of the line in practice.
Like the rest of the series, Chopard powers the Mille Miglia GTS Power Control Bamford Edition “Desert Racer” with its in-house Chopard 01.08-C automatic power reserve movement. Although much of the visual detail is obscured by the smoky black sapphire display window here, the finishing on this movement is excellent, with arabesque waves and polished anglage for the nearly full bridges. The skeleton rotor is topped with matching arabesque finishing, along with a striking fluted segment for added light play. The Chopard 01.08-C’s performance is similarly impressive, with COSC-certified chronometer accuracy, a robust 60-hour power reserve, and a smooth 28,800 bph beat rate. Chopard finishes the watch with a suitably rugged, low-profile fabric-effect deployant strap in matte black rubber.
Although the basic design behind it is far from new, the limited-run Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Power Control Bamford Edition “Desert Racer” is high-impact, charismatic proof that the series is still capable of forging new aesthetic paths. Only 50 examples of the Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Power Control Bamford Edition “Desert Racer” will be made. All 50 units have already been sold as of press time, despite a decidedly stiff MSRP of $10,400 USD. For more information, please visit the brand’s website.
