After designing both a race car and a motorcycle in concept, Bell & Ross designers have turned to the skies for the latest challenge – but this time, to design an aircraft capable of actually competing in the Reno Air Races in record-breaking style. Why? To serve as inspiration for a watch collection, of course – because if surrounding heritage or inspiration isn’t enough, one must resort to conjuring it out of thin air. Now, when it comes to marketing budget expenditures, The Racing Bird airplane is probably as much of a gimmick as there’ll ever be. But I’ll be honest, it’s still an extremely cool one, and one that (thankfully) has also yielded an equally cool watch, the Bell & Ross BR V2-94 Racing Bird Chronograph (along with its sibling three-hand BR V1-92 Racing Bird).

That’s the one thing I’ve always liked about Bell & Ross: the brand seems to make no effort to hide behind the fact that its designers – not its heritage (or lack thereof – the brand was founded in 1992 after all), or its association with some famous ambassador or military group is its strongest asset. And when the designers design, and the watchmakers make watches (i.e. both parties simply do what they are best at), watch fans win. The Racing Bird is a wonderful example of this. Granted, in mechanical design it’s not dissimilar to the V2-94 Bellytanker or the V2-94 Garde-Côtes models from previous years, but that’s fine. What we’re essentially looking at here, is a palette swap, albeit an extremely effective one inspired by an actual working propeller-powered aircraft that Bell & Ross designed.