Your daily adrenaline kick as a watch
Let’s go back in time and look at the 1960 racing chronograph “Panda”, which has this retro vibe and makes you feel like you are racing an old veteran car. This watch makes you always want to do timekeeping everything you do. Sometimes I want to track the time, on my way to work or when I’m shopping for groceries. It’s maybe a strange thing to do, but I like to use the functions of the watch to track my time, or just observe the movement and hands going around the dial.
This chronograph is created for timing racing down to one twentieth of a second, which many racing watches can’t measure down to. It’s very important for a racing driver to track the exact lap time or could measure the cars speed by the tachymeter.
What gives the watch the retro vibe?
This watch is the epitome of the old school racing era. It starts with this beautiful off-white dial, that makes it look aged and retro. Then we are going to the black sub dials, which should represent the panda’s black spots. For me the design of this watch is a classic, and if the design is ringing a bell for some of you watch nerds out there, you’re not wrong.
Paul Newman the legendary actor, film director and race car driver was known for wearing a Rolex Daytona with almost the same color combo. The watch is more ideal for time measuring, because of the right sub dial that counts one twentieth of a second for measuring the exact time, which the Rolex doesn’t have.
All this combined with the brown special edition racing strap with small holes in, makes me want to take some old racing gloves on and go start the engine. It comes with the brown racing strap, but you can always change the strap, perhaps to a steel link that makes the watch look sportier. With the straps and links from About Vintage, you can always change your strap in seconds without a tool. Every strap or link comes with a quick release, and that’s a blessing for a person who loves to customize their watches, like me.