Skyline

My goal with Skyline was to capture the essence of a sports car in a watch. It is not meant to evoke connections with racing like chronographs are, but rather take elements of hyper-car deign - like complex exterior surfaces that have form and function and contrast that with a minimal gauge like dial or interior. The instant jump hour is analogous to instant shifting transmissions. The single hand and angular indices reflect the precision and aesthetics of a rev gauge. The lugs independently articulate like the suspension on a car and make the watch incredibly comfortable to wear. The seconds display is a nod to turbocharger impeller blades. The case back is inspired by sports cars from the 80’s that had slats in the engine cover through which you could see the engine.

Skyline’s dial is a simple frosted, thermal blued piece of steel. Its simplicity balances the complexity of the case.

Thermal blueing makes the blue tone appear different depending on the light. Here it has a blueish grey hue. In other light it can vary from navy blue to dark indigo.

While it was not intentional, the dial looks like a butterfly - which fits nicely with the Skyline name!

Continuing the sports car connection, the case back is inspired by ‘80s super cars like the Ferrari F40 and Lamborghini Countach that have slatted engine covers through which you can see the engine. My ‘engine cover’ has angled slats and is also thermally blued like the dial to give the back continuity. However, the thermal blueing is less uniform in a nod to heat from engines, oil etc. The ‘engine’ of this watch is an ETA 7001 with a jump hour module that I developed.

I really wanted the dial to have a ‘rev gauge’ feel to it. This tuned out to be challenging because one is used to seeing two hands on a dial, and I feel that most regulator watches look unbalanced with only one hand. The solution for me was to add a lot of visual weight to the single hand to fill in the void of the missing hour hand. The multi-piece hand commands attention, the angles and pointed end convey precision.

The indices on Skyline took the longest to finish because each index had 7 surfaces that needed finishing. The top faces are polished, sides are grained. The indices are also very tall to make the dial seem like it is floating.

For the blue of the dial, I wanted the color to represent the beautiful blue of the California sky as it transitions into the morning from dawn. That is my favorite time to go on bike rides and think about my watch projects!

The shape of the lugs were inspired by wings. Each lug has a wing cross section profile which has an obvious connection with aerodynamic wind elements on modern sports cars.

Skyline’s case is made up of multiple pieces and each piece has multiple finishes. The central cylinder is brushed along the cylinder face and polished at the bezel. The case body is brushed with polished with polished chamfers on the body and crown guards which gives the eye a single line to follow along the length of the case. The lugs have polished chamfered, brushed faces and frosted inset where the lug screw fits.