Originally built for the specific purpose of race timing, chronographs have come a long way from their trackside clock origins to become one of the most popular horological archetypes alongside dive and field watches. The difference? There’s a lot of watchmaking behind the complication, whether you’re looking at an ever-reliable, ever-accessible meca-quartz number or a prestige column wheel piece. So, from summer-ready colourways to timeless prestige timepieces – alongside a more than healthy dose of automotive inspired designs – here are some of the finest chronographs of the year so far. And as we’re only about halfway through 2025, expect plenty more to come.
Cadola Testa di Toro Chronograph
The Testa di Toro – or “Bull’s Head” – gets its name from the top-mounted chronograph pushers that evoke the horns of a bull, a design made famous by 60s and 70s motorsport watches. Cadola’s colourful rally-inspired rendition pairs that retro aesthetic with a modern Seiko quartz chronograph and a stainless steel case, delivering a bold, accessible statement piece for petrolheads.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter x 14mm thickness, stainless steel case, black dial
Water resistance: 50m (5 bar)
Movement: Seiko VD57 quartz chronograph movement
Strap: Brown leather rally strap
Price: $179 (approx. £139), limited to 100 pieces
Riley Watch Co Howard Hughes Scarface Chronograph
Say hello to my little friend… sorry, wrong Scarface. Riley’s latest aviation-inspired chrono is actually based on the original 1932 Scarface, aviator Howard Hughes’ first turn as a film producer. In a striking black and gold colourway, it’s early Hollywood glamour distilled into an uber-accessible quartz chrono, complete with Riley’s signature rounded square case and silhouette-matching subdials, and limited to a scant 100 pieces.
Case/dial: 40mm diameter x 12mm thickness, stainless steel case, black dial
Water resistance: 50m (5 bar)
Movement: Seiko VK64 Meca-Quartz movement
Strap: Black rubber strap
Price: £249, limited to 100 pieces
Matthew Mercury TZ3986 Chronograph
Named after a fictional interwar watchmaker, Matthew Mercury brings 20th-century character into the modern day with the bold, motorsport-flavoured TZ3986. Its black and red dial, tricompax layout, and Swiss quartz engine make it a sporty, reliable chrono with high-end specs and accessible flair – equally at home on the track or in town.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter x 9.8mm thickness, stainless steel case, black dial
Water resistance: 50m (5 bar)
Movement: Swiss Ronda 3540.D quartz chronograph movement
Strap: Black or red rubber strap
Price: £319
Duckworth Prestex Lostock
Revived British heritage brand Duckworth Prestex cut their teeth with affordable automatic chronos, but don’t sleep on their latest quartz offering. The Lostock’s handsome vintage vibes are available in a quartet of colours and, in keeping with the light blue wave, includes a gorgeous eggshell-coloured bicompax number. Archival numerals, pump pushers and a lovely beads of rice bracelet, there’s a lot to love – and that includes the price tag.
Case/dial: 40mm diameter x 13mm thickness, stainless steel case, light blue dial
Water resistance: 200m (20 bar)
Movement: Miyota 6S21 quartz movement
Strap: Beads of rice bracelet
Price: £495
Studio Underd0g Go0fy Panda Gen 3
While they’ve taken on copycats with their latest avocado-themed pair of watches, Studio Underd0g’s tongue-in-cheek approach to watchmaking is perhaps exemplified by their twist on the classic black-and-white racing colourway, the Go0fy Panda. The latest generation pairs the signature big-eye layout with their new anthracite-coloured, custom Seagull movement and a slightly slimmer case than the first generation run. It’s as fun as ever and one of the most wearable ways to buy into the hottest microbrand in the world right now.
Case/dial: 38.5mm diameter x 12.9mm thickness, stainless steel case, Satin sandblast base-dial and coarse dégradé top-dial
Water resistance: 50m (5 bar)
Movement: Seagull ST-1901B, manual winding, 50h power reserve
Strap: Black leather strap
Price: £550
Certina DS-7 Chronograph Padel Edition by Marta Ortega
If you’ve not heard of padel, where have you been? It’s the sport of 2025, a mash-up of tennis and squash, and Marta Ortega, who collaborated with Tissot on this particular design, is one of the best players in the world. The result is a carbon fibre-styled quartz piece that you could easily wear as you play, complete with a 1/10th second chronograph and some sporty green and yellow highlights. As fun, accessible, overtly sporty chronographs go, this is up there.
Case/dial: 41mm diameter x 12.15mm thickness, stainless steel case, black carbon effect dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: ETA Precidrive™ quartz movement
Strap: Black fabric strap
Price: £595
Baltic Scalegraph Tour Auto 2025
The first new chronograph from Baltic for a while is a tribute to their ongoing partnership with the Tour Auto and is dressed in a zeitgeisty livery of light blue, dark blue, and white. Finished on a sexy beads of rice bracelet, Baltic have once again proved their finger is on the pulse with a pitch-perfect, neovintage racing watch. It’s not quite as accessible as their Bicompax (which is still a modern classic) but here’s hoping we get many more Scalegraphs in the near future.
Case/dial: 39.5mm diameter x 14.2mm thickness, stainless steel case, light blue dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Sellita calibre SW510-M, manual winding, 63h power reserve
Strap: Beads of rice bracelet
Price: £1,475.25
Farer Chrono-Sport Carnegie Titanium
You don’t need some on-the-nose partnership to evoke the elegance of a classic car livery, especially if you have as great a mastery of colour as British brand Farer. The Carnegie colourway for their superb Chrono-Sport pairs a bronze-brown dial with a light blue tachymeter bezel and white subdials for a gorgeous look that wouldn’t be out of place in the Mille Miglia. The fact that it’s made from titanium is just the appropriately lightweight icing on this beautifully iced cake.
Case/dial: 41mm diameter x 13.5mm thickness, titanium case, brown dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Sellita calibre SW510M, manual winding, 63h power reserve
Strap: Brown leather strap
Price: £1,775
Tissot T-Race MotoGP Automatic
Big, bold and unapologetically thematic, Tissot’s latest tribute to the MotoGP doesn’t just have a bezel inspired by a brake disk, doesn’t just have an open dial for that intensely mechanical look, doesn’t just have chronograph pushers stripped straight off a performance bike – but it does all that with a solid mechanical movement. The movement in question is the skeletonised Valjoux A05.951, bringing some more-than-solid watchmaking specs to the usually quartz collection.
Case/dial: 45mm diameter x 14.79mm thickness, stainless steel case, skeletonised dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Valjoux calibre A05.951, automatic, 68h power reserve
Strap: Black rubber strap
Price: £1,950, limited to 2,025 pieces
Herbelin Cap Camarat Chronograph
All the 1970s style of the Gerald Genta era but without the price tag, there’s a good reason Herbelin’s Cap Camarat is always an accessible favourite – and the chronograph version does nothing to change that. Pairing the green, horizontally striped dial with black subdials, it maintains all the hallmarks of the collection – the faceted case, screwed bezel and integrated rubber strap – with just that bit of extra functionality. And for once in watches of this breed, largely thanks to the svelte bicompax layout, the chronograph version actually looks better than the original.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter, stainless steel case, green dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Sellita calibre SW510, automatic, 62h power reserve
Strap: FKM rubber
Price: £2,340
Vulcain Skindiver Chrono
Underwater chronographs can be a bit of an odd duck given that it’s all too easy to let that particular complication – with its pushers moving in and out of the case – have a negative impact on water resistance. Not so here, where this handsome chronograph maintains the 200m water resistance of the original Skindiver Nautique model, adding some cool vintage flair to the archival design with its black-on-white subdials and chunky, underwater-ready indexes. The only hard decision is which strap you get it on – black leather, beads of rice, or the retro steel number with oversized links.
Case/dial: 39.7mm diameter x 13mm thickness, stainless steel case, white dial
Water resistance: 200m (20 bar)
Movement: ETA 7753, automatic, 42h power reserve
Strap: Leather or stainless steel bracelet
Price: From £2,350
Junghans Telemeter Edition
The theory of relativity tells us that time and space are one and the same, which makes the Telemeter – which measures distance according to time – the most natural chronograph scale of them all. Junghans’ latest version is a beautifully traditional take on the formula, pairing yellow gold PVD with deep green, and a pop from the red telemeter scale and matching central chronograph hand. It’s more archival science watch than cutting-edge racing piece, and it’s all the better for it.
Case/dial: 40.8mm diameter x 12.6mm thickness, stainless steel case, green dial
Water resistance: 50m (5 bar)
Movement: Jungams calibre J880.3 automatic, 42h power reserve
Strap: Leather strap
Price: £2,590
Frederique Constant Classics Vintage Rally Healey Chronograph
Frederique Constant are continuing their drag race against the Breitling Top Time with their more accessible tribute to classic cars, specifically in collaboration with Healey. Their latest makes ample use of Healey Blue, the signature colour of the legendary Austin-Healey 3000 MKII BM7 and with its particular pale shade with darker subdials, makes for an elegant summer chronograph that nails the trend for icy blue dials. Even if you’re not into your classic cars, it’s absolutely gorgeous.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter x 14.45mm thickness, stainless steel case, sunray blue dial
Water resistance: 50m (5 bar)
Movement: Frederique Constant calibre FC-397, automatic, 62h power reserve
Strap: Blue leather strap
Price: £2,995, limited to 1,888 pieces
Stowa Chrono ABT 24h Limited
If you know Stowa best for their pitch-perfect archival designs – the definitive Flieger, for one – then let me present to you a very different face of the German watchmaker. A collaboration with car tuner ABT Sportsline, the blacked-out case and dial with red highlights and plenty of Lamborghini-inspired touches is a world away from a heritage design. It’s modern, sporty, and with its unique Y-patterned dial, is a cool take on your classic, aggressively high-octane racing chronograph.
Case/dial: 44mm diameter, stainless steel case
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Sellita calibre SW510, automatic, 48h power reserve
Strap: Black leather strap
Price: €3,490 (approx. £2,975), limited to 50 pieces
Norqain Freedom 60 Chrono Enjoy Life Special Edition
Beat the heat with the ice cream colours of Norqain’s latest Freedom chronograph. With subdials and matching sections of the tachymeter inner bezel in minty green, strawberry pink, and not-quite-bubblegum blue on a vanilla white dial, the cherry on top of this particularly joyful sundae is the ice cream date window. The ice cream only appears on select dates, but if you buy this watch you are committing to enjoying a sweet, below-zero treat when it pops up. Norqain will know if yo…
Case/dial: 40mm diameter x 14.9mm thickness, stainless steel case, white dial with green pink and blue subdials
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Norqain calibre N19 (based on Sellita SW510), automatic, 62h power reserve
Strap: Stainless steel bracelet
Price: £4,050
Findeisen SpeedForce Desert Oak
Sure, it has a name like a 1990s superhero show, but there’s a lot more to this retro-styled chronograph than meets the eye. German brand Findeisen has taken the unusual step of putting both the chronograph seconds and minutes centrally, replacing the minutes subdial with an additional 24-hour display. The result makes the most commonly used features of the chronograph far more readable. Paired with an unusual nine o’clock date and an elegant salmon-adjacent colourway dubbed …
Case/dial: 40mm stainless steel case
Water resistance: 100m
Movement: Damasko C51-6 TOP automatic movement, 50-hour power reserve
Strap: Brown leather strap
Price: €4,985 (approx. £4,250), limited to 35 pieces
Bell & Ross BR-05 Chrono Patrouille de France
If you were the French equivalent of the Red Arrows, what other watchmaker would you partner with than Bell & Ross? The Patrouille de France is a natural fit for the cockpit-obsessed brand and their BR-05 chrono is the latest in that four-year (and counting) partnership. With a pale blue dial, dark blue and white ‘squircle’ subdials and the aerial acrobatics team’s logo at six o’clock, it’s a lovely edition of an already cool, industrially elegant model.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter x 14.25mm thickness, stainless steel case, blue dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Bell & Ross calibre BR-CAL.326, automatic, 60h power reserve
Strap: Blue leather
Price: £6,100, limited to 500 pieces
Tudor Black Bay Chrono “Carbon 25”
A racier face to Tudor than most of us are used to, this new carbon fibre-clad edition of the classic Black Bay chrono is an eye-catching flash of high contrast black, white and blue, like a Panda with eye shadow. The colourway’s taken from the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls Formula One Team, hence the overt racing theme to the watch. But it’s also even more of an indication (if the recent Lagoon Blue 54 weren’t enough) that Tudor’s getting more comfortable with striking dial colours…
Case/dial: 42mm diameter x 14.3mm thicknessm carbon fibre case, white dial
Water resistance: 200m (20 bar)
Movement: Tudor calibre MT5813, automatic, 70h power reserve
Strap: Black fabric strap
Price: £6,260
TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Festival of Speed
Not content to simply take over timekeeping duties in F1, TAG Heuer are also tackling the legendary Goodwood Hillclimb, and doing so in style with a new limited-edition Carrera in, of course, British Racing Green. Thankfully there’s more to the watch than just an on-the-nose colour shift, and the knurled dial, red hands and bezel-less construction all add up to a watch that would look at home among the classic car paddocks at the UK’s most extraordinary automotive event.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter, stainless steel case
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Tag Heuer calibre TG 20-00 calibre, automatic, 80h power reserve
Strap: Green leather
Price: £6,450, limited to 100 pieces
Omega Speedmaster First Omega In Space
Looking for ever more niche extra-terrestrial records to pay tribute to, this handsome archival Speedmaster is an homage to the first Omega in space. Not the first on the moon or the first watch in space, just the first Omega to leave the atmosphere on the wrist of astronaut Walter Schirra. Regardless of record granularity however, the result is a great look at pre-Moon Speedmasters with modern build quality and a perfect vintage style. It’s hard not to love.
Case/dial: 39.7mm diameter x 13.4mm thickness, stainless steel case, blue grey dial
Water resistance: 50m (5 bar)
Movement: Omega calibre 3861, manual winding, 50h power reserve
Strap: Stainless steel bracelet
Price: £7,400
Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Chronograph
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s approach to chronographs combines their typical artisanal approach to design with the practicality of a steel sports watch. With a 42mm diameter and 100m water resistance, it has enough utility for daily wear. While at the same time its dial is produced via a painstaking lacquering process involving 35 layers of lacquer and varnish to create three distinct finishes and a gorgeous Ocean Grey fumé gradient.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter x 13.39mm thickness, stainless steel case, Ocean Grey fumé dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Jaeger-LeCoultre calibre 761, automatic, 65h power reserve
Strap: Black rubber strap
Price: £13,700
Hublot Big Bang Unico Summer 2025
Summer’s a time for bright watches, but where most brands stick to dial colours, Hublot have typically gone their own way with a multi-coloured ceramic case. Said colours are sky blue, dark blue and orange, mirrored on the skeletonised dial, for an even bolder version of an already maximalist watch. If you’re a DJ playing a summer festival tens of thousands strong, this is what you should be wearing.
Case/dial: 42mm diameter ceramic case, skeletonised dial in sky blue, dark blue and orange
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Hublot calibre HUB1280 automatic, 72h power reserve
Strap: Blue and orange rubber strap
Price: £26,900, limited to 100 pieces
Parmigiani Tonda PF Chronograph
The Tonda PF remains one of the most sophisticated collections in the high-end space, and while Parmigiani have shifted focus slightly to the stunning Toric, pieces like this highlight why we love their modern flagship. The mineral blue colour with the collection’s signature diamond, Grain d’Orge dial pattern, inset subdial rings, and a beautifully elegant platinum case make for a prestige dress watch that just so happens to include a superlative high-frequency chronograph.
Case/dial: 40mm diameter x 12.72mm thickness, platinum case, blue dial
Water resistance: 100m (10 bar)
Movement: Parmigiani calibre PF070-COSC, automatic, 65h power reserve
Strap: Platinum bracelet
Price: CHF 31,500 (approx. £28,650)
Breitling Navitimer B02 Chronograph 41 Cosmonaute
Possibly the ultimate prestige chronograph, Breitling are celebrating a century since astronaut Scott Carpenter made them the first Swiss watch in space – and they’re doing it in style. With a 24-hour dial instead of 12 due to the lack of a day and night cycle in space, the limited edition Cosmonaute brings a white, blue and red colourway to bear on the slide rule bezel and tricompax chronograph pilots’ watch. So why the price tag? Well, it’s a great movement of course, but mainly because the whole case is made from platinum. The heavyweight precious metal’s not the best for leaving the atmosphere, but for a collectors’ edition like this, it’s to be expected.
Case/dial: 41mm diameter, platinum case, blue dial
Water resistance: 30m (3 bar)
Movement: Breitling calibre B02, manual winding, 70h power reserve
Strap: Blue leather
Price: £34,500, limited to 50 pieces
Surprised to not finding Zenith Chronomaster tricolor here on the list!
Great review from Sam, covering a massive range of watches, and at all price points.
I’m personally not into the big bold Chrono thing myself, but having said that, I do have a couple of chrono’s, but these are elegant rather than bold, without the massive Chrono pushers. I guess it depends on your perspective and if you do really time race laps, where the big pushers are a benefit.
So, to the watches reviewed. Having taken out of the equation, the ones with oh so bold colours, and also the big pusher rods, that leaves the list a lot shorter, and taking elegance into account, the list is vastly diminished. So (for me), top prize (in the high price bracket) would be the JLC, with the Parmigiani a close second (beautiful dial and understated bezel, but the bracelet lets it down as it makes the overall ensemble too bulky). Whilst, in the affordable price range, the Herbelin does look nice, the Studio Underd0g Go0fy Panda gets the top (pole position), for style and fantastic price.