La carrozzeria
What really makes the cars from the golden era of car-design that splendid is their bodywork.
These lines were drawn by feeling (or «emozione» as they call it in Italy), combined with extremely good taste and not following wind channels or – even worse and unthinkable today – safety regulations.
What looked fast, usually was fast (well, not always, but at least it looked gorgeous). Elegance joined speed.
So what really makes one of the main differences to so-called «car-inspired» watches is the «carrozzeria»
Design meets engineering
The construction of the Scuderia Veloce is a little bit similar to the one of a car. To put it very simply, there you have a chassis, an engine and over that, bodywork.
The Scuderia Veloce has all of that: The chassis is the basic case, housing the movement – la macchina – and forming the support of the bodywork.
We call it «la carrozzeria».
It’s a extremely complex, curved piece in stainless steel which made our manufacturer sweat and use all his knowledge. After the milling, it is polished and treated either with a PVD-coating or, for the model «rosso scuderia» with a subtle coat of paint, applied by a small, extremely specialised Swiss company that usually works for high-end watch companies.
It is available in the three emblematic, well chosen colours:
- rosso scuderia
- argento
- nero profondo
Additionally, there is the purist’s execution which in fact is a hommage to the german racecars of the thirties. It’s first sanded by hand and then partly polished, as they did for the legendary silver arrows to save weight. To go faster, of course.
The three parts of that body are fixed with custom made special «Blasta» screws which needs a special screwdriver tool.
The extremely cool limited collector’s set contains one complete watch and the three additional carrozzerias, and the special screwdriver to change them easily and without any risk.
The good thing: You don’t need the skills and the patience of a watchmaker to change these parts.
See how this works here.
Il diffusore
The Scuderia Veloce is, at least as far as we know, the first wristwatch with a diffuser-inspired caseback.
Right, that’s that aerodynamic component under and in the back of racing and sports cars (for the James Mays among you, read more here).
It does not only make it look go really fast, but has the ability to literally make the car stick to the ground following the laws of aerodynamic sorcery. (At least in theory. We are not talking here about these ridiculous plastic diffusers on french made family barges).
Honestly, you don’t need that on a watch.
But wow! it looks incredibly cool and is a real talking piece.
The complete diffuser back is fixed by six Blasta custom-screws. It is part of the construction that’s fixing the underside parts of the carrozzeria. (See how it works on this video). It is precisely milled and then treated with a matte black PVD-coating before being engraved.
The diffuser is one of the elements that really makes the Scuderia Veloce stand out of the crowd.
Some images of the prototype of the diffuser before it was engraved.