Model No.2 Chronograph

Lorca Model No.2 | Chronograph

Besides a desire to create something new and beautiful, it is hard to find a rational explanation for what compels one to design a manual wound chronograph in the 21st century. The most natural line of reasoning would, of course, invoke nostalgia. Watch enthusiasts, including myself, have been admiring astronauts and race car drivers donning these intricate and beautiful objects since childhood: tools so earnestly designed and perfectly executed that they left little, if any, room for re-imagination.

Though, as is nostalgia, warm and revered, it is also elusive and fleeting. A new design with roots firmly planted in the past must exude something new for its enjoyment to endure. Perhaps, most simply, an honesty to the present. One that bears strongly in mind that while digital clocks have taken over the world’s most crucial timekeeping duties, the romantic enthusiast can still find use for gears and pushers—find solace in the soft crackle of a mainspring winding, particularly when the rituals involving them do not feel without purpose.

The Model No.2’s identity was borne of that spirit. 3 registers to time long activities: a car ride to a distant, beloved destination, a flight to visit a family member, the time elapsed since the holiday roast was placed in the oven. These are not events necessary to time on a wristwatch, but we do so because it deepens the experience; because it imbues it with a sense of poetry.

This sense of romantic utility is carried through in the watch’s Guilloché bezel, perhaps one of its most beguiling features. Doing away with the more traditional tachymeter in favor of a 12 hour scale, the bezel rotates bi-directionally to the low, precise click of its ball bearing mechanism. While we no longer derive average lap speeds from our wrists, we do often wish to know the time in another place at a quick glance, tracking the time zone of a loved one away, or of home while traveling.

The bezel’s design, with numerals that protrude directly from the Guilloché without the use of base plates, represents a feat of machining, one whose challenges were not easily overcome. The result of this perseverance is an object of ornate beauty, one that incoporates the technical need for numerals without interrupting the mesmerizing pattern of its fluting.

Offering the contrast and legibility of a reverse-panda but with a warmer, more jeweled quality, the watch’s subtle sunray dial appears charcoal gray in flat light, only to reveal shimmering gold highlights in direct sunlight. The champagne subdials harmonize with all these shades and feature our proprietary font, inspired by mid-century typography, modernized to maximize legibility. The mirror-polished, sharp and beveled indexes reflect light prismically and emit the warm blue of BGW9 after dark. The beveled, bold, dauphine handset receives a matching treatment and exists in dialog with the 12h index’s arrowhead shape.

The case of the Model No.2 integrates the design language and ethos of its predecessor, the Model No.1 GMT, while upsizing slightly and further refining the finish. Diameter is a still restrained 37 mm (38 mm at the bezel) with a slightly taller posture of 46 mm lug to lug and broader-shouldered 20 mm lug spacing. Thickness is a mere 11.6 mm without the crystal—the absolute minimum achievable, with every possible micro millimeter having been shaved off during the technical development. A beautiful, high double-domed sapphire crystal sits atop the gentle slope of the bezel, bringing total thickness to a still-slender 14.1 mm Water-resistance, one of Lorca’s high priorities, is rated to 100 m. The screw in solid case-back has again been left uncluttered by need-less information, providing a clean palette for personalized engravings.

The Swiss Sellita SW510M soignée/élaboré was chosen to power the Model No.2, a cam and lever workhorse providing +/-5s/day of accuracy and 63 hrs of power reserve. The Côtes de Genève bridgeplate, while hidden behind the solid caseback, is no-less gold-engraved with Lorca’s logo and specifications.

Last but not least is the watch’s bracelet, a work of elegant refinement: low in profile and sturdy & slinky, owing to its numerous small, solid links. These are each independently brushed before assembly and generously spaced apart to yield a wearing experience that feels next to none.

Compact, elegant, and manufactured to standards that defy “microbrand” categorization, the Model No.2 stands as our proud contribution to the great lineage of 3-register manual-wound chronographs, both past and present—one we imagine will continue to inspire future generations no less porfoundly than it has our own.