Introducing the Supercar-Inspired Ford GT Owners Edition Chronograph from Autodromo

Unless you drop about half-a-million dollars on a new Ford GT, you will not be allowed to purchase the Autodromo GT Owners Edition Flyback Chronograph. However, the 3D online configurators for both the car and the watch are a joy to tinker with, and both take you deep inside these innovative designs. It’s not entirely absurd to consider playing with Ford’s configurators as a valuable aesthetic experience in its own right, and—not for nothing—it is free.The Ford GT is a “supercar,” which basically means expensive, rare, and fast. The GT’s cutting-edge technology, design, and performance belie whatever notions you may have of Ford as a stayed legacy brand, the maker of modern Mustangs that look old, of the F-series pickup trucks so standardized as to be symbolic, of SUVs so generic that they practically disappear in parking lots. But the GT is—and always has been—a highly innovative and successful super car. The GT40 famously won four LeMans titles back in the 1960s, crushing Porsches and Ferraris and putting American automobiles into a previously unobtainable limelight.

Autodromo, maker of automobile-inspired watches and other goods, is back to help Ford celebrate the modern GT. This is Autodromo’s second outing with Ford, having released a generally available Meca-Quartz Endurance Chronograph back in 2017.

The GT is a low-slung, carbon-fiber beast generating 647 horsepower from a twin-turbo charged V6 engine. The GT new Owner’s Edition Chronograph is just as innovative, daring, and detailed as the car itself. Taking its design cues largely from the dashboard and steering mechanism, this watch is loaded with so many customized nuances that one has to conceded that Autodromo has entered the realm of luxury watches. Accordingly, the price starts at $11,500.

Pretty much everything on the watch is unique, right down to the form-fitting rubber strap. Other examples include the crown, which mimics the scroll wheel selectors found on the GT’s steering wheel, and the chronograph pushers, which mimic the GT’s shift paddles. The 43-millimeter case is matte ceramic and steel, a nod to the high-tech materials that make up the GT’s frame and body, while the case’s shape mimics the car’s front grille.

The dial leaves tradition in the dust. A honeycombed plate that replicates the GT’s frame structure lays underneath a sapphire layer that holds the watch’s indicators. The hands are also sapphire. The stated goal was to get the dial to interpret (though not exactly mimic) the digital read-out of the GT’s instrument panel, and it’s interesting that Autodromo’s lead man, Bradley Price, intentionally went for a pixilated look. Today’s digital instrument panels are generally getting better, though I am sure we’ll look back on this year’s tech with nostalgia and note, as Mr. Price has, that the instrument clusters are, indeed, quite pixilated. It’s a brilliant insight, one which highlights Price’s eye for the iconic.

Inside is an automatic La Joux-Perret-modified 7730 column-wheel flyback movement, a mechanism that nods to the history of the GT, especially those 1960s LeMans victories during which a flyback would still have been relevant.

For anyone looking for a dose of American pride, I suggest dipping into the history of the Ford GT, it’s legacy as a world champion race car and a modern marvel, and I suggest spending some time with the GT Owners Edition Chronograph configurator, a great way to get a taste of Autodromo’s horological celebration of car culture. Autodromo/Ford