As it rolls out a series watches with a 42mm case size, the Detroit Watch Company leads off with this handsome 1701 Pontchartrain GMT dual timezone automatic. Here you’ll find a nicely proportioned dial with easy-to-read date window and a red-tipped second time zone indicator hand.
Now utilizing ETA and Sellita movements throughout its collections, this Detroit-based watch company makes the new watch available with a choice of a clear sapphire or solid caseback. As on all its watches, Detroit iconography is front and center with the stylized letter D clearly visible at the top of the dial and on the blued seconds hand. The Detroit Fleur-de-Lys is also a focus here, visible on the crown, on the GMT hand and on the back of the solid-case model.
Detroit Watch Company founders and chief watch designers Patrick and Amy Ayoub are rightfully proud of the region’s heritage.
In short, Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit was built along the Detroit River to protect the French fur trade from the British and was named in honor of Louis XIV’s minister of marine and colonies, Louis Phélypeaux de Ponchartrain. Le Detroit, French for ‘the strait,’ eventually came to identify Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit and the surrounding area and after 1751, was known simply as Fort Detroit.
The company notes that it will add another 42mm case model, the M1 Woodward Chrono Moonphase, in February. The company plans to debut a dive watch later in 2018.
The Detroit Watch Company 1701 Pontchartrain GMT is limited to 100 numbered timepieces in closed caseback and 100 numbered timepieces with exhibition caseback, brushed case finish and decorated movement. Price: $1,475 (sapphire caseback) and $1,350. www.detroitwatchco.com.
Specifications: Detroit Watch Company 1701 Pontchartrain GMT
• Caliber: Automatic ETA 2893-2 GMT, Date Calendar, 28,800 vph, 42-hour power reserve, top decorated movement with perlage, Cotes de Genève and blued screws.
• Functions: Display by means of hands, hours, minutes, seconds, second timezone. Date display in window. Superluminova on hour and minute hands.
• Case: 42mm diameter polished stainless steel, brushed finish on main case section on exhibition model. 9.7mm overall height. Exhibition caseback, or solid caseback, water resistant to 50 meters.
• Dial: Satin white with black graphics and polished hour indexes with SuperLuminova
• Strap: Calf leather with deployant clasp