Teddy Baldassarre
The 20 Best Racing Watches From Affordable to Luxury
High-end watches and high-performance cars have long been intertwined, and the cross section between watch aficionados and car-racing enthusiasts has always been large. So it makes sense that "racing watches" - i.e., watches built to be worn and used in the arena of motorsports, many with automobile design language built into their aesthetic DNA - have long represented a popular sub-genre in the wider luxury sport-watch universe. Here we spotlight 20 auto-racing watches from 19 brands (one brand merited two entries on the list; we think you'll agree which one), ranging in price from eminently affordable to super-luxury. We've included some acknowledged icons of the genre as well as watches from a few brands you may not have considered. Gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines... and we're off! [toc-section heading="Vaer RS1 Rally Chronograph"] Price: $249, Case Size: 40mm, Thickness: 11.8mm, Lug-to-Lug: 48mm, Lug Width: 20mm, Water Resistance: 100 meters, Crystal: Sapphire, Movement: Seiko VK63 Mechaquartz Vaer founders Ryan Torres and Reagan Cook pooled their collective life savings to start their own watch brand because “we couldn’t afford the watches we liked and didn’t like the ones we could afford.” Based in Venice, California, Vaer released its first watches, assembled overseas, in 2017, and began manufacturing in the U.S. just one year later. The RS1 Rally Chronographs take their cues from timepieces worn by race car drivers in the 1960s and ‘70s and...
