Montblanc, with its TimeWalker watches such as this Rally Timer, has become the Official Timing Partner of Goodwood Festival of Speed.
In an exciting, and fitting, move, Montblanc — with its new TimeWalker collection — speeds into action as the Official Timing Partner of the Goodwood “Festival Of Speed.” Easily one of England’s top sporting events, the Festival of Speed takes place annually at Goodwood, the seat of the Dukes of Richmond for more than 300 years and England’s greatest sporting estate. By partnering with the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Montblanc brings its TimeWalker collection to the forefront.
Because auto racing requires split-second precision in timing, the chronograph watch embodies the spirit of the sport. As such, Montblanc’s Timewalker chronographs, will take center stage at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed. In fact, the brand has signed a five-year partnership agreement. Montblanc’s new collection takes its inspiration from the early days of its Minerva factory in Villeret, Switzerland. There, the brand created top-performance watches for auto races of the early 20th century, and for a host of other sports. In fact, the renowned Minerva “Rally Timer”stopwatch was created to time motor racing, and with that in mind, Montblanc recreated that Rally Timer this year.
Montblanc teams with Goodwood Festival of Speed
Later this summer at the exciting Goodwood event, Montblanc will present the Rally Timer, along with other key pieces from the TimeWalker collection (including the new bronze watches that were unveiled earlier this year at SIHH 2017. These newest Montblanc Timewalker watches highlight the brand’s ability to tap into its rich Minerva legacy of watchmaking, especially in the field of professional time-keeping instruments. The new Timewalker collection embraces the spirit of timing, and of auto racing, and has roots that are synomous with superb technology, masculine energy, high performance and the stylistic elements that capture vintage qualities of the golden era of racing.
The Goodwood racing circuit is a Motorsport venue steeped in history. The first race was held at the Goodwood circuit in England on September 18th, 1948, and subsequently the track became famous for hosting the Glover Trophy non-championship Formula One race, the Goodwood Nine Hour sport car endurance race and the Tourist Trophy race. The history for the Festival of speed however goes back a bit further to 1938 when when the then Duke, better known as racing driver and Brooklands winner, Freddie March, staged a private hill climb for the Lancia Car Club on the winding drive in front of Goodwood house. In the winter of 1992, his grandson, the present Earl of March, recreated that motor sport event and the following summer the Festival of Speed was born and entered the British social and sporting calendar. Today it is one of the largest and most celebrated car culture events in the world.
Goodwill Festival of Speed will now be timed by Montblanc and its TimeWalker collection.
“Goodwood is the ultimate celebration of the traditions and achievements of automotive racing over the past century, while Montblanc’s watchmaking heritage is closely tied to the chronographs used during the glory days of motor racing”, says Nicolas Baretzki, Montblanc CEO. “The Goodwood Festival of Speed is the perfect platform to present our new TimeWalker collection as this partnership brings together the ambition of pushing boundaries in the field of automotive performance and racing on one side, and on innovating in the field of timekeeping performance on the other.”
Every summer Goodwood hosts Festival of Speed, which will be held this year from June 29th to Sunday July 2nd. The theme of the Festival of Speed in 2017 is “Peaks of Performance – Motorsport’s Game-Changers”, celebrating racing machines that were so fast, powerful and complicated that the rules had to be changed to rein them in. A similar spirit is shared by Montblanc, as the Maison has had a number of innovations that helped change the status quo. Montblanc will present the ‘Game Changers’ collection of 10 cars that best epitomize disruption in motor racing from the 1920s to the present day. For each iconic automobile of the ‘Game Changers Presented by Montblanc,’ its magnificent history will be highlighted in detail and they will also tackle the fabled Goodwood hill climb throughout the weekend.
Montblanc’s TimeWalker Collection recalls the rich chronograph history of its Minerva workshops in the early 20th century.
Naturally, as the timing partner of Goodwood, Montblanc TimeWalker will provide the live results of the event through a new digital channel, ‘Speed and Style.’ The channel will tell the Montblanc story at the Festival of Speed and serve as the host for exclusive content on cars and collectible items from all over the world. We will bring you more coverage soon.
