The New Rolex Daytona La Montoya — Watch Modifications & Beautiful Skeletons
The issue about modding — in watches — has always been one of the most disputed. And, we have to tell you, a lot of the mods are really not that groundbreaking, but mostly cosmetically. You take a famous watch and paint it black. Oh, what a surprise! But some, instead, are different.
Or WAY different, such as in the case of the La Montoya.
But before starting — what is a “La Montoya”?
It is a Rolex Daytona “modded” by Artisans de Genève to meet the taste of Juan Pablo Montoya — who is considered to be one of the 50 best racers of all time, and is, as you might assume, a watch addict.
The Colombian racer, who has raced successfully in almost any kind of car championship on the face of Earth, is a huge Daytona fan.
“I’ve always been passionate about the Rolex Daytona, I probably have seven or eight of them — I won the Rolex 24 three times, and it’s a watch that really relates to all of my racing. So I was amazed when the idea came along to do a skeleton Daytona. Artisans de Geneve went far beyond anything I could ask for”.
A watchmaking workshop based in Geneva, Artisans de Genève offers an exclusive service of watch modification based on styles that they propose.
This means that they take “stock” watches, manufactured from the most prominent maisons, like Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Rolex, and then modify them upon request on a very limited number in their workshops in Switzerland, through the patient work of independent and highly skilled craftsmen.
And the quality of their “modding” can be seen in the result of their interventions: the maison has plenty of (exquisitely) modded watches in their lineup — with most sold out.
Regarding the La Montoya, one of the pet peeves of the Rolex owners is that they cannot peek inside their timepieces.
True to their origins as tool watchmakers, the House of the Crown creates watch featuring a closed back case, which needs special tools to open as well.
So, this was one of the first design features to work upon while creating the Montoya. The back lid of the watch has been substituted by a sapphire glass back case, which shows the (highly customized and decorated) Rolex watch caliber 4130 in all its glory.
The ring around the sapphire crystal has been engraved with “Les Artisans de Genève” and “Juan Pablo Montoya” together with the individual number of the limited edition (yes, there are only 50 Montoyas around the world).
Then we pass to the opposite side — the dial. And we discover that the Geneva-based lab has done much to render this Rolex classic mean and lean.
The dial has been substituted by a custom-made bezel with tachymeter that has been created by milling a forged carbon block. And the display of the sub-dials — painted in several colors, à la Zenith El Primero Rainbow, adds a subtle element of color, inspired by the Colombia flag, to the face of this sultry timepiece.
Now we come to the core part of the modding: the movement.
Almost every part of the 4130 has been touched by the Artisans. And brought to another level of sophistication.
The movement has been entirely skeletonized.
Many of the plates and bridges have been cut and opened — also the mainspring drum — and also the weight of the rotor, which has been made in 21k grey gold, polished with a circular finishing. Almost all of the surfaces have been brushed, beveled and polished by hand, creating a beautiful effect of anglage — but with a very high-tech, futuristic mood.
“Artisans de Geneve embodies what I wanted in somebody who would build a watch for me. They are that somebody that was happy to remove limits to how a watch should be built”.
The skeletonization of the watch has a justification in the racing world: every pound saved makes a racing car more competitive — and we can easily imagine Juan Pablo Montoya urging the Artisans to remove this and that inside “his” watch to make it leaner.
But what was not removed, for certain, was the charm of this timepiece, which looks perfectly at its place at a race track. And if you are seriously wanting to impress someone, you could instead make a go for the Gold El Montoya — which substitutes stainless steel with 18k yellow gold.
“The more I look at this timepiece, the more I like it.” Says Montoya — and we are not doubting it. Its appearance is pretty striking.
The art of skeletonization
What is nowadays a somewhat common feature was once upon a time a very peculiar one, which involved very skilled craftsmen, and it was a kind of technique that stood between mechanic skills and artistic décor.
Since the 1800s, there was a tradition of very peculiar decorations which were made on the top bridges of the pocket watches, especially in the German lands of the Black Forest near the Swiss border. What you saw outside were very plain pocket watches, which were built in such a way as to strictly respect the dictates of Calvinist morality: not to flaunt one’s wealth.
But once the inner lid of the case was opened, their true nature showed itself in all its splendor.
The upper bridges were worked in bas-relief, so as to show rustic scenes, panoramas, trees, flowers, human figures, which proposed visions almost dreamlike and hidden, reserved for the very few who could have access to such an intimate, private place.
Removing metal from the bridge so to better style the images was a consequence of the pursuit of beauty. And in time, this act of subtraction became ever more intense as to reach the levels of today, almost an art in itself.
Audemars Piguet’s archives speak of a model from 1928, which was the first skeleton watch ever made industrially by a watch company — but we did not experience many developments of this idea in time: skeleton watches were mostly made upon request for affluent individuals who fancied the idea of watching the inner mechanics of the movement at work.
It was only after the Quartz crisis that the idea of skeletonizing caught on.
From the 1970s, for about twenty years skeletonized watches enjoyed a boom, as the combination of meticulous handcraft and the amazingly intricate and — can we say it — almost cyberpunkish moods of the resulting timepieces were very attuned for the efforts of an industry which was trying to reinvent itself.
One of the first interpreters of this trend was Armin Strom, who in 1984, launched his first skeletonized watch at Baselworld. His début inspired a nouvelle vague of watchmakers which took the craft of skeletonization to new levels, applying their trade to complete watches made by other companies and obtaining a sort of unique masterpieces.
This new trend continued to this day, or at the very least unless a new notable watchmaker made his appearance on the scene of haute horology: Richard Mille.
Who thought about creating skeletonized watches since their inception — something which was a radical development after almost 250 years of horology.
Richard Mille went away with the traditional baseplate and bridge architecture — characterizing all the modern watches — invented by Lepine in 1760, and created movements which had the minimal amount of metal to house all the elements of a working mechanical timepiece.
Describing the design thinking behind this radical approach, Richard Mille said,
“In the first place it is my passion for racing cars and aircrafts that guided this approach. I am totally fascinated by what is under the hood, and seeing how everything works; this was also why from the very beginning I used open worked movement designs. Also, today, nearly everyone is — consciously or unconsciously — technically orientated.”
And just to turn back to the origins of the skeletonized approach, he added:
“Perhaps you could say that I took the ‘fear’ or prudery out of the naked movement issue. Now, everyone feels free to try this design ethic.”
The story of the latter years shows that Mr. Mille is pretty right.
Nowadays, almost every watch manufacturer has some pretty lovely skeleton watches in its lineup.
The current trend in design shows that almost every maison, apart a more elegant, but old-styled movement decoration with traditional motifs in watches is creating layered, essential, and very industrial-looking skeleton movements which the main asset is the design of highly styled black and grey anodized bridges, relying on the interplay of grained, brushed, glossy and matte textures to provide a three-dimensional look in which the gears of the mechanism, more often than not in contrasting metals, play with their unceasing movement.
Although not everyone’s cup of tea, it also has to be said that the development of this industrially-looking design trend has benefitted mostly thin and ultra-thin watch manufacturers, such as the Bvlgari and Piaget, which are presenting collections of sultry-looking luxury timepieces which ooze character in buckets.
Some skeleton models you might like
The Audemars Piguet Millenary Carbon One is an amazing timepiece which combines all the experience of the “Young Prince” with its tireless mission towards innovation.
The case, complete with the lugs, is made in forged carbon, a material developed by the company. The central section of the case comes from a network of carbon threads, which are placed inside a mold, and then compressed with a heavy-duty industrial press at high temperature.
The resulting material is composed of 76% carbon and 24% polyamide. It is extremely light and resistant. Other elements of the watch, such as the bezel, crown, and pushers are made in ceramics. The final timepiece originating from this high-tech process is sort of amazing, weighing just 69.44 grams.
Carbon is the protagonist of the internal structure of the watch, too. It is a special kind of carbon nanofibres which are injected at a temperature of 2400 Celsius under high pressure, so to result in a chemically inert material which maintains its dimensions unfazed over a broad range of temperatures and conditions.
The caliber 2884 equips this masterpiece of a watch: it is a completely proprietary movement equipped with a tourbillon, a chronograph, and a 10-day power reserve.
The mainspring power is contained in a couple of barrels so to optimize the power release — which ensures 10 days of smooth working. The movement takes about 15 days to assemble, three of which are needed to regulate and finetune the 80-piece tourbillon.
The Corum Admirals Cup Acoustica Minute Repeater is a wonderful watchmaking product, featuring high-end engineering to create his signature minute repeater feature.
It is the first time in the world that a minute repeater marks off time by chords and not merely with single notes. This is due to its architecture, which sports four gongs and four hammers, which strike simultaneously in pairs.
An additional touch of technical finesse is lent by a design feature created to guarantee a water resistance of 30 meters: the sonnerie mechanism, which is powered by its own power reserve, is activated by a turn on the bezel. No sliders, no pushers.
And the vision of the 37-jewels hand-wound movement at work is truly awesome and can be appreciated from the front and the back of the case to its skeletonized architecture.
The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Extreme LAB 2 packs almost every function you could think of in a single watch.
It is a sturdy sports watch. It is a deep-diving watch (with 300 meters water resistance). It is a chronometer. It has a GMT function to measure two time zones. Plus it does not need lubricating — ever — and works its many different functions through a selector included with the crown.
And the chronometer display, featuring a jumping minutes display, is perfectly visible in the otherwise busy dial, featuring, between other things, also a reserve charge indicator.
The structure of this watch is based on a complex case composed of two parts: an inner case which is pretty traditional, and an outer case which serves as a support for the inner one. It is robust and efficient thanks to the extensive use of a high-end material, TiVan15, a titanium and vanadium alloy which provides 15% greater resistance than traditional titanium alloys, combined with ceramics and other details for a comprehensive whole which asserts quality all-around.
An unusual shape for the maison characterizes this Richard Mille Extra Flat Automatic RM 033 RG A which offers a unique experience to its wearer, especially when compared with the other models of the maison. This is a dressy Richard Mille.
This timepiece feels almost minimalist in its restrained 18K rose gold case that is water-resistant to 30 meters. It is a very thin watch — only 6.30 mm thick — and houses a 29 jewels self-winding RM movement beating at 21,600 vibrations per hour, visible through the transparent case back.
The architecture shows, as you would suspect, an automatic winding operated by an off-center micro-rotor. The gear train and the winding mechanism have been skeletonized as in Richard Mille’s style — so, offering a modern and technical high-tech design which is razor-like sharp looking.
As you would expect, the finishing is superb, offering hand-polished chamfers, beveled wheels, burnished pivots, and hand-grained steel parts, which provide a Terminator-like feeling, suitably warmed up by the soft pinkish hue of the gold case.
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