Omega Speedmaster
Although there are a small number of people of varying
levels of lunacy (pardon the word-play) who still believe
that the 1969 moon landing was the world’s greatest hoax,
most of us could not fail to be astonished by the
achievements of Armstrong et al. That they navigated and
travelled the three hundred and eighty thousand kilometres
with the assistance of roughly as much computing power as
the average Sinclair Spectrum only increases one’s
admiration.
On the astronauts’ wrists, as most Omega fans will know,
was the Speedmaster; the only watch at the time that was
certified by NASA for space flight, following a rigorous
testing regime, which resulted in the model being chosen
over similar chronographs from Rolex, Breitling and Heuer.
Later on, during the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, the
Speedmaster’s accuracy even enabled the astronauts to time the
secondary rocket bursts that helped to take the stricken
ship back to earth.
But it is not the Speedmaster’s illustrious past that has
gained it a place on The List; it is the elegantly simple
design that has, apart from a brief foray into 1970s soft
edged futurism, remained true to most of its original
styling cues for fifty years. A Speedmaster Professional
bought today, will differ only slightly, in visual terms,
from the ones worn by US astronauts in the 1960s.
Of course, some changes have taken place under the skin;
the movement is still manually wound, but is now a cal.861,
rather than a cal.321, as was in the watch worn by Aldrin on
the moon. Although this may be anathema to some purists, the
cal.861 is a more accurate movement than its predecessor,
albeit one that is certainly cheaper to produce than the
cal.321. In fact, the Speedmaster Professional model with
the transparent case-back actually uses a modified version
of the cal.861 (the cal.863) that is restyled for better
looks (including the replacement of any plastic parts with
metal ones.)
Omega has produced innumerable variations on the theme of
the Speedmaster over the last forty years, with varying
success. There have been Michael Schumacher special
editions, models with added complications, such as moon
phase functions, and even ones that included a small image
of Mickey Mouse on the dial. Avoid these. The
Speedmaster is all about simplicity and durability, which
means that the Professional is the only version worth
having, and even then it must be in steel only; gold watches
are, without exception, best left for hip hop stars and
South American drugs barons.
The Speedmaster differs from many of the other watches
included in The List in its very availability; most upmarket
watch retailers will have in stock at least one Professional
model. But, somehow, this ubiquity does not taint its
reputation. The Speedmaster somehow, despite its popularity,
remains a relatively rare sight, certainly in Europe. It has
never attained the level of omnipresence that, say, the
Rolex Submariner has, despite having a similarly
distinguished heritage.
Of course, this is a positive advantage in the context of
The List; a watch with both style and providence that does
not also adorn the wrist of every ageing playboy in the
South of France can only be a good thing.
