Can-Am® - Americas

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The Watch 

The Can-Am features our bespoke Stainless Steel 316L surgical standard case. Featuring soft push function buttons and a screw-down crown machined from solid Stainless Steel. 

The dial is hand assembled and has raised indexes with polished steel hands and markers. The result is an all round watch that can we worn on the track or at dinner.

The case weighs a comfortable 95g. It measures 42.5mm in diameter, with a 49mm lug-to-lug, and is just 11.5mm thick. The top of the case is polished, with the case sides finished in a matt finish to give the design some contrast. Blending seamlessly into the design f the cushion-shaped case is a sapphire crystal, which has multiple internal layers of anti-reflective coating. 

The Can-Am carries a depth rating of 100m or 10ATM. Inside the watch you’ll find the tried and tested Japanese Miyota OS20 movements. 

The watch is finished off with an Italian ethically sourced leather strap with stitching.

Can-Am®  - Written by Henry Hope-Frost.

 Take a selection of the world’s fastest and most versatile drivers, equip them with massive, purpose-built, V8-powered sports-racers, unleash them around North America’s finest road courses and see what transpires.

That’s exactly what happened in the almost-mythical and much-lamented Canadian-American Challenge Cup in the second half of the 1960s and first half of the ’70s.

Running to motorsport’s governing body the FIA’s Group 7 regulations, featuring unlimited engine capacity and precious few other technical restrictions, Can-Am encouraged free-thinking from designers and engineers and required supreme bravery from drivers.

As a result, some outrageous machines appeared from inventive and imaginative brains at Chaparral, Lola, McLaren and Porsche. And with them came such wacky and wonderful science as 8-litre, 1000bhp engines, sophisticated, cockpit-adjustable aerodynamics and space-age materials.

With big-name aces, many of them Grand Prix heroes, on the driving strength – think John Surtees, Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Denny Hulme, Bruce McLaren, Peter Gethin, Jackie Stewart, Peter Revson, George Follmer, Mark Donohue and Jackie Oliver, all of whom won races – the series was as popular as the cars were powerful.

Having become an arms race in the early 1970s, thanks to powerhouses McLaren and Porsche creating staggeringly sophisticated machines such as the M20 and 917-30 respectively, the unsustainable formula was killed off at the end of 1974, the global oil crisis of the time not exactly helping.

Can-Am was reborn in 1977 using reworked and rebodied Formula 5000 cars from America’s defunct single-seater series. It just wasn’t the same, despite attracting plenty of top drivers, and fizzled out a decade later.

For purists, Can-Am’s true legacy remains the golden era of 1966-’74, when fabulous and frightening rocketships thundered into battle for nine ground-trembling and ear-splitting seasons.

We have captured this epic era of unrestricted and somewhat simplistic racing with a period piece using elements and colours from the famous Can-Am race cars.

Henry loved the Can-Am® and indeed wore the prototype to most events in late 2017 up until his tragic accident on March 8th 2018. As a tribute we have added a small detail to the case backs of this watch.

Can-Am® shown with Papaya Orange NATO strap.

TECH SPECS : 

Case: 
Diameter: 42.5mm width - 11.5mm height
Material: Stainless steel
Dial Colour: Matt Dial
Movement: Japanese Quartz Chronograph
Water Resistance: 10ATM

Glass : Flat anti-reflective glass 

Strap: 
Width: 22mm
Material: Leather
Colour: Black Rally