Most people who like cars also like airplanes ... and boats ... and trains ... and watches. Almost anything mechanical, in fact, attracts our attention.
Two motor racing-related wristwatches once owned by Paul Newman and a former president of Scuderia Ferrari (Ferrari's racing team) set records and sold for a total of $2,386,067 at the Geneva, Switzerland, auction on May 12th.
A large gold Patek Philippe chronograph watch which had belonged to Count Carlo Felice Trossi, an Italian Grand Prix-winning driver (what they used to call Formula 1) who became president of Scuderia Ferrari was bought for 2.345 million Swiss francs (current USD$2,219,297). This was the highest price ever reached for a wristwatch at Sotheby’s, according to the auction house. In a sale of almost 200 watches, the Patek Philippe knows as the “Trossi Leggenda” was definitely the star attraction. (Photos --- Above, the Trossi Leggenda which sold at auction for over $2.2 million, in front of a photo of a young Carlo Trossi; Below, a version of the Rolex Paul Newman Oyster Daytona which brought over $166,000 at the same event).
At the same event, a gold Rolex Cosmograph Oyster Daytona, made around 1980, known as the
"Oyster Daytona Paul Newman," named both after the Florida race track and for the American actor who (perhaps unknowingly) made the style famous, netted 157,000 francs (current USD$166,770), compared to its pre-sale estimate of less than half that amount.
It's important to note that the there was never an official "Paul Newman" watch from Rolex until these were produced by the company after 1980 --- The Rolex Oyster Daytona models which came before are known as "Paul Newman-types".
Geoffery Ader, head of watches at Sotheby’s told a news conference that the watch was one of “great symbolic and historic importance as it came out in 1932, a turning point which also saw car racing and the emergence of airplanes".
Count Carlo Felice Trossi was a wealthy, handsome Piedmontese nobleman who was enormously rich from his family's banking and landholdings and was a serious lover of automobiles and racing. His ancestral castle at Caglianico, near Biella, had a racing shop, entered by a drawbridge, where the Count often joined his small retinue of mechanics to work on his cars, always wearing a pair of white linen gloves.
Trossi was one of that small group of European aristocrats whose daily lives were so far removed from reality that even WWII failed to take them away from their "hobbies." (Photo --- Trossi Roadster version of Mercedes SSK currently in the Ralph Lauren collection).
Enzo Ferrari, an engine mechanic and race car engineer, started the Scuderia as a private Grand Prix team which campaigned race cars for Alfa-Romeo. Carlo Trossi, an early investor in the team, replaced Augosto Caniato as the president of record for Scuderia Ferrari in 1932 at the ripe age of 23; but the title was purely honorary, as Enzo Ferrari ran the operation and Trossi acted as Ferrari's personal ATM, the young company's main source for funding and as a backup driver. Trossi died from a brain tumor at only 41 years of age.
For much more information and many more photos concerning Trossi, Newman and Ferrari and their fantastic cars, click below.
(Photo --- Trossi with the Alfa-Romeo team; the Count is one person to the right of the car, in sunglasses, natch!)
Trossi developed (not only with his money, but also his engineering and driving talents) several cars which live-on to this day.
Perhaps the most radical of his racing cars was the Monaco-Trossi Race Model of 1935. This revolutionary race car was developed by the technician Augusto Monaco and by Carlo Felice Trossi, who tested it in the trials of the Italy Grand Prix of Monza in 1935. Its most interesting feature was the two-stroke engine of aeronautics conception with 16 cylinders arranged in a double row and with a single combustion chamber for every pair of cylinders. This engine was assembled frontally and fan cooled, as in aircrafts. Another peculiar feature for the time was the front-wheel drive, which allowed avoiding the use of a long driving shaft. (Photo --- The fabulous Monaco-Trossi of 1935, with a 16-cylinder airplane-type rotary engine; and, yes, this is the front of the car).
A friend of Trossi, Count Revelli, helped designing a streamlined body to the car. After many rumors and
speculation the car was finally revealed to the public at Monza tests in July, 1935. Those present were amazed at the first sight of what looked more like an wingless airplane than a racing car. The car was indeed built according to very advanced aircraft methods. Sadly because of the weight distribution and problems with the engine, the car was never raced.
The Trossi Roadster, as one of his other cars eventually came to be known, began life when Trossi, who knew where (and how, even in the War years) to get the best cars in the world, purchased a Mercedes SSK when it was "the" sports car of choice. They were designed by Ferdinand Porsche and became known as the White Elephants for their brute force. The series started with the 1927 Type 680 S and matured with the shortened 720 SSK. They had a brilliant racing career and were praised for their famous history. Only five original SSKs survive today and each is a "holy grail" among car collectors.
As Trossi knew then where to get the best cars then, one representative of that kind of wealthy collector today is American fashion house owner Ralph Lauren; it is in Lauren's "stable" of classics, which has been featured in museums around the world, where the Trossi Roadster now resides, restored to within an inch of its life. (Photo --- The Trossi Roadster produces over 300 horsepower and more than 500 ft. lbs. of torque from its supercharged Mercedes engine, pictured below straight-on and in profile).
While most of the SSKs featured purposeful bodywork and cycle fenders for competition, a few were sent to the premier design houses to be fitted with an elegant body. The Trossi Roadster was purchased by him after its competition career was over and he sent it, chassis number 36038, to Willie White who fashioned a body of steel. White was a relatively unknown coachbuilder and he formed the body to Trossi's design which probably explains why the car is simply known as the Trossi Roadster and not the Willie White something-or-other.
Underneath the hood is 7-liter Inline-6 which completely fills the bay. Providing a full 300bhp thanks to an "elephant" supercharger that came straight from the special SSKL, the forced induction only engages when the accelerator is fully pressed. Whatever this monster may weigh (certainly in excess of three tons), the driver no doubt experiences wonderful launch thanks to 507-lb ft of torque at 2000 rpm.
Supposedly, Count Trossi bought and sold this car several times from when he first registered it in 1932
through 1949 (maybe Trossi had a lot in common with Carroll Shelby, too). It eventually found a home with Ralph Lauren who had it comprehensively restored by Paul Russel and Company in Essex, Massachusetts, about 20 miles from Boston. After 5,000 work hours and two years, the car debuted at the 1993 Pebble Beach Concours where it won Best In Show. The car doubled this trick and it's price tag by taking the 2007 Villa d'Este Concours Best in Show as well.
How American actor/director/producer/champion racing driver/champion race team owner and Academy Award-winner Paul Newman's name became attached to the Rolex model known as the Oyster Daytona has been a topic of discussion in the watch and racing communities for decades. There are, naturally, numerous theories.
(Photo --- In the 2005 Daytona Beach Rolex 24 Hour Grand-Am Race, Paul Newman's race team fielded, and Newman was one of the drivers who competed in, this car with sponsorship from Pixar and Disney to promote their then-new movie, Cars; the #79 was a Silverstone Racing Ford).
One theory is that Newman, still acting (officially) and racing (unofficially) at 83, wore one of the watches (featuring the exotic dial) in the 1969 Indy car racing film, Winning, in which he co-starred with (his wife) Joanne Woodward, and Robert Wagner (not his wife, but who now pitches insurance policies for the elderly, "starring" in late-night TV infomercials).
It's been further suggested that it was Newman's appearance on one of that movie's posters that caused the Italian public to become enamored with the Daytona race track and its "24 Hours of Daytona" endurance race, the one American automotive endurance event which was worldwide cachet. Some say this could be likened to the overwhelming popularity of the leather bomber jacket after Tom Cruise wore one in the 1986 film Top Gun; or, for those over 30 years of age, to the leather jacket worn by Marlon Brando in the 1953 film, The Wild One. Incidentally, Brando's custom-made leather jacket for that film was the first leather jacket ever made specifically for a motorcyclist. (Photo --- Paul Newman in racing garb on the cover of TV GUIDE sometime in the Nixon era).
Yet another Paul Newman/Oyster Daytona theory, suggested by Dowling & Hess, co-authors of The Best of Time, Rolex Wristwatches, proposes that the actor was subsequently featured on the cover of a highly popular Italian magazine (again wearing the exotic dial Daytona) which launched the watch's popularity with the European public.
And there are just as many stories which say that while Newman did wear a stainless-appearing watch in Winning and in the poster, there were never any footage or photos from the film showing the watch in enough detail that allows the watch to be identified, definitely, as a Rolex. This all makes for nice tall tales, bar bets and bench-racing ... and helps push prices up when it comes to collectors and auctions.
(Photo --- Paul Newman and Julia Roberts pose in Nomex fire-retardant racing suits, but for what event, we don't know; Perhaps the heat created when these two are in one room together necessitates the use of the fireproof underwear ...).
In 1905 German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf and his brother-in-law, Alfred Davis founded "Wilsdorf and
Davis" in London. In 1908 Wilsdorf registered the brand name "Rolex". In 1919 he moved the company to Geneva where it was established as "Montres Rolex S.A." Similar to Lexus, Jeep, Infiniti, Xerox, Kleenex and innumerable others, Rolex is one of the first of the "made-up" corporate and/or product names which went on to become very successful brand names worldwide.
Some think that the name Rolex is a combination of the Rolls of Rolls-Royce fame, and Timex, a name used by several different watch brands sold in the UK (before it became well-known in 1950s America as the watch that "takes a licking and keeps on ticking").
By definition, a chronograph is a timepiece that, in addition to the normal time telling function, also performs a separate time measuring function such as a 'stop watch'--with a separate seconds hand which can be started, stopped and reset to zero, via push buttons on the side of the case.
Rolex introduced their first chronograph models around 1937. Rolex gave the line a major facelift when they introduced the Cosmograph (model 6239), a Rolex trademarked term which is similar to the chronograph, the cosmetic difference being that the 'tachymeter scale' is printed (or engraved) on the bezel rather than on the outer rim of the dial. (Photo --- A cheap knock-off of a Rolex Paul Newman Daytona ... The owner proudly tells friends that his watch cost $115, and "looks just like the real thing ... except for the name!").
In 1961, Rolex released a similar version (model 6241), and soon these watches became known as the Daytona, so named for Daytona Beach, Florida, which is home to some of the biggest names in auto racing. The watches almost instantly became very popular in the racing community, due to their usefulness when calculating average lap speed, and of course thanks to the cachet of the name itself.
These first models were available in a number of dial configurations, including what has become known as the exotic dials. These exotic dial configurations were either black (with white registers), or cream white (with black registers), and featured square markers within the registers. It is also important to note that these configurations were subsequently nicknamed the Paul Newman models, and were quickly in high demand in the Italian markets, as they still are to this day.
A quick search on the Internet attests to the popularity of not only the real Paul Newman models, but also counterfeit, pirated versions. In fact, it is possible, for a very few dollars, to buy a counterfeit watch face which somewhat matches that of a real Paul Newman Oyster Daytona, and for a few dollars more, an unscrupulous watch technician (easily found at one those kiosks in most any shopping mall throughout the USA; the place where you get a new battery for $7 every five years) will install it for the buyer on any watch the face could fit. These crooked knock-offs are easily spotted by experts and collectors, but might be able to fool a stranger from 10 feet or more, especially if the target of the watch-owner's affections is a woman in a dimly-lit bar; frankly, that's the kind of person who would be proudly sporting a phony Rolex. (Photo --- Count Trossi wins the 1947 Milan Grand Prix in car #6, top of photo).
As a family-owned company, Patek Philippe made their first pocket watch in 1839 and has remained independent since that time; their first wristwatch was produced in 1920. The company says that because of that independence, it enjoys total creative freedom to design, produce and assemble some of the finest timepieces in the world.
With its vast experience and more than 70 patents to its credit, Patek Philippe is the only manufacture that crafts all of its mechanical movements according to the strict specifications of the Geneva Seal. These precious, timeless elegant watches, proudly handed down from one generation to the next, are the result of latest-generation technology combined with traditional watchmaking know-how. Today, Patek Philippe includes the main workshops and headquarters at Plan-les-Ouates, the case and bracelet workshops at Perly, the Patek Philippe Museum at Plainpalais, all in Geneva, as well as the Patek Philippe Salons in Geneva, Paris, and London.
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