Does this seem familiar? Yes, the popular bronze Hanhart chronograph recently released by some good friends of ours, seen on a Time+Tide editorial wrist here ,is a bronze 417 chronograph. Now Hanhart has remade the original stainless steel icon – a crisp cut classic military pilot’s chronograph with an earthbound claim to fame. The man among men, daredevil, own stunt-performing suave adventurer Steve McQueen wore one, and not while sipping a latte, I can tell you that much. Motorcycle off road endurance racing – a tough, dirty and bone-shaking job for any watch, including the Hanhart 417ES that we associate with pilots, not muddy scrambler-bike riding action stars. Any watch that can stand 300 miles a day of riding through muddy woods for a week is tough in anyone’s book. The original Hanhart 417ES is a legendary German bicompax chronograph, only produced between 1956 and 1958 in 500 pieces, and the ES? Edelstahl meaning stainless steel, with the German language being very poetic in this case, meaning literally noble steel. Thankfully devoid of fauxtina, this is a delightfully faithful recreation of the first pilot’s chronograph produced for the German armed forces, so that’ll tick the boxes of both battle-ready, mud…
The post Hanhart just quietly released the 417ES, a Pilot’s watch famously worn by McQueen, and it’s a sleeper vintage monster appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
