If you don’t know Ball Watches by now, you should. The low-key Swiss brand is up there with the finest value-for-money watches around, with more-than-solid builds and their signature H3 gas tube indexes. Complications though aren’t really Ball’s forte, focusing more on survivalism over prestige, perhaps with a chronograph or GMT function thrown in for good measure. Now though, they’re expanding their repertoire with something completely different – at least mechanically – with the alarm-equipped Ball Roadmaster M Model A.
The Roadmaster as a collection is one we’ve not really heard much from over the past year or so, but is essentially Ball’s take on the classic dual time zone template of the Rolex GMT Master-II. That means a two-tone 24-hour bezel, here in that black-and-red Coke colourway, combined with a striking GMT hand, here in red with an H3 gas tube at its tip like a skeletonised lighthouse. It’s a cool look and one of the few genuinely useful complications in one package, but it’s a package we’ve seen before. Not so the alarm.
Dubbed the AlarmMATIC system – because everything needs a fun trademarkable name – the Model A’s alarm is a cut above your usual, tinny cricket noise. The gong has been re-engineered with a ringed shape and polymer coating to offer a more sonorous, school bell-like pitch, much more pleasant and a lot louder than most mechanical alarms. The alarm can be set and manually-wound using the crown at 4 o’clock, leaving the second crown at 2 o’clock for all the other usual functions.
Most importantly, this is alarm GMT movement is entirely in-house, Ball’s fifth in fact, the Calibre RRM7379. Along with a -4 to +6 variance a day and 40-hour power reserve, that alarm itself runs for a solid 18 seconds. That, combined with its volume means that you won’t be able to miss it from the next room over, let alone when it’s on your wrist.
That wrist presence is visual as well as audible. While 41mm of stainless steel across doesn’t seem massive on paper – and it is perfectly wearable – the chunky bezel and dual crowns give the Roadmaster M Model A some serious heft, in keeping with Ball’s gloriously over-engineered ethos. That’s an ethos that comes to life in low light with a downright ridiculous level of light of various colours coming from both lume on the bezel and gas tubes in the dial.
At one end of their collection, the Marvelight has done Ball remarkably well as an accessibly priced entry-point that strips their signature approach to watchmaking down to the bare minimum. Now we have this, the Roadmaster M Model A, proving that at the other end of the scale, Ball are developing some genuinely cool, complicated calibres. And for $6,299 – just over £5,000 – it’s still an incredible amount of watch for the money.
Price and Specs:
More details at Ball Watch.
