The connection between the automotive and horological worlds goes beyond watches. Swiss companies such as IWC (International Watch Company) and Breitling have made clocks for Mercedes-AMG and Bentley vehicles, respectively. But those are modern collaborations — Breguet did that for the Bugatti Royale way back in the 1930s.
The “Marie-Antoinette” pocket watch (Photo courtesy of Breguet)
Writing about the Bugatti Royale’s centenary reminded me of this link between the French automaker and the Swiss timepiece manufacturer. Founded in 1775, Breguet is known for its “moon tip” hands and the timepieces it crafted for historical figures, such as Marie-Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte, and
Winston Churchill. Ettore Bugatti reached out to Breguet in 1932 to commission timepieces for the massive and majestic Type 41 Royale models.
According to Bugatti’s media site, “The Swiss watchmaker [was] tasked with crafting a range of chronographs – with a tachometer function to measure speed over time – to be proudly displayed in the center of the steering wheel of the Royale automobiles. Incorporating all the expertise acquired by Breguet since its creation in 1775, a series of 9 on-board chronographs was thus delivered to Bugatti.”
Chronograph No. 2023 (Photo courtesy of Breguet)
From what I’ve seen, there were two styles of timepieces. Chronograph No. 2023 looks like the definition of a chronograph, aka a stopwatch, with its big seconds hand, tachymeter scale for measuring the approximate speed of a vehicle over a known distance, and minute counter at the 6 o’clock position.
Photo courtesy of Bugatti
One of the photos on Bugatti’s media site shows what appears to be a two-handed clock and not a chronograph at all.
Photo courtesy of The Henry Ford
Photo courtesy of The Henry Ford
In fact, if you look at Bugatti’s gallery of Royale photos, you’ll see that only a few of them show the steering wheel and that only one of those (the photo above) shows a Breguet in the middle of the steering wheel. The Royale Weinberger Cabriolet that The Henry Ford museum displayed at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance doesn’t have one either.
All six Bugatti Royales at the 1985 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (Photo courtesy of Bugatti)
It’s oddly fitting: Even at 100 years old, the Bugatti Type 41 Royale is timeless. It was a singularity of scope, size, and opulence when it debuted in 1926 and it remains one a century later.
