There isn’t a motorcycle aficinado who doesn’t know the Ducati 916 , and there’s isn’t a watch aficionado who hasn’t heard the name Gérald Genta , designer behind the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak , Patek Philippe Nautilus and many other iconic watches of the 20th century. While it may not be immediately obvious why Ducati’s and Genta’s legacies are being linked for the 30th anniversary of the legendary 916, it is both genre-shaping design and advanced mechanical technology that unites them.
Gerald Charles was the final brand to be established by the watch industry’s most famous designer. The Swiss-Italian Genta founded the brand combining his first and middle names in 2000 after selling his other eponymous firm, Gérald Genta, to Bulgari . Genta then sold Gerald Charles to the Ziviani family in 2003, but continued to serve as its head designer until he passed away in 2011.
Ducati has also changed hands over the years, most recently becoming a member of the Volkswagen group of companies by way of a long-standing close relationship with Lamborghini . Long known for high-design, it is the Ducati 916 of 1994 that remains the Italian brand’s most iconic bike , heralded for its sleek lines and upswept exhaust as much for its prowess on the road.
The 916 in its rightful place in the Ducati Museum.
The sophisticated technology inside the Ducati’s desmodromic v-twin engine and the complex movements inside Gerald Charles watches both have pushed precision mechanics to the limits. Jump hours, a display that sees the digital hour numeral jump right to the next at the top of every hour, is perhaps most famously associated with Gérald Genta and was found on many of the watches he created in his lifetime. It is therefore no surprise that the fun display should turn up in the Gerald Charles Maestro 4.0 Ducati 30 ° Anniversario 916.
Aside from its shiny retro-futuristic look thanks to prominent superlight materials like the matte black ceramic bezel, forged carbon fiber case, and titanium crown, this watch accelerates toward the eye with slanted bright red numerals on a central motorcycle wheel that nods to the design of the original three-spoke bronze alloy Ducati 916 rim. Through the “rim” that is really the gold-colored disk moving the jump hours we can see Gerald Charles’ new automatic caliber with proprietary jump hour function. A red Super-LumiNova window around the current hour makes it even more legible when night begins to fall, simultaneously adding another layer of coolness. All 12 of the numerals are filled with the same luminous red substance.
The Gerald Charles Maestro 4.0 Ducati 30 ° Anniversario 916 is available in a limited edition of 250 pieces for $42,400. If you happen to have purchased the Ducati Panigale V4 SP2 30° Anniversario 916 motorcycle, you may request that your bike’s serial number be engraved on the case back. Each of the 250 watches also comes with a dedicated lithograph of Octavio Garcia’s sketched design.
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