We’ve already taken a look at two of Sopwith Watch Company’s pilot’s watch GMT models produced from historic metal salvaged from antique airplanes: the Thomas-Morse Scout and Messerschmitt Bf 109. However, the Aero Marquis Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Arctic Sea changes things up in a significant way. Not only does it champion the history of a third aircraft, but also it introduces the brand’s first full lume display.
Starting with the case, it measures 41mm in diameter in historic steel that’s re-forged in-house at the Sopwith Foundry, protected by a PVD coating. The steel comes from the cockpit armour plates of an original Focke-Wulf Fw 190, one of the primary fighter aircraft used across 1942-44 on the Eastern Front, as well as in the arctic north. Structurally, it has a relatively understated tool watch design with a round shape, vertical flanks and an oversize crown (in bronze along with the compass bezel) with pronounced grip, for easy use in the cockpit.
As briefly noted, the major detail that makes the Aero Marquis Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Arctic Sea stand out from the rest of the collection is its full lume display. The rest of the models use a sandwich style display, where a layer of lume is sandwiched between the bottom dial plate and a top plate with cutout hour markers – here though, the filling has been moved from the centre to the top. It oddly still works very well because during the day it simply looks white with blue hour markers and in the dark, the hour markers are still visible, just in the inverted style of being the only part of the display not illuminated. The same is true of the hands.
The impact of the white and blue colour scheme is to create a display that feels very wintery, which is intentional given that the name of this model is Arctic Sea. The Arctic was a major battleground during WWII, protecting Germany’s north coast from attack while also protecting convoys and threatening strategic Allied defences. The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 saw lots of service under the Jagdgeschwader Five (JG 5) and Eismeerjäger wings in Norway and Finland, where pilots and engineers were in a constant fight against weather conditions to keep planes in the air. Though they are most famous for failing to intercept an Allied aerial attack on the German navy’s Tirpitz Bismarck-Class battleship.
Powering the model is the Sellita calibre 2893-A2 Élaboré with 42-hour power reserve. It features central hours, minutes and seconds along with a central 24-hour hand that in conjunction with a bronze coloured 24-hour scale on the dial allows the watch to display multiple time zones simultaneously. It’s protected by a solid caseback with the Sopwith Watch Company logo.
The Aero Marquis Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Arctic Sea is limited to 55 pieces at a price of $4,900 (approx. £3,600). As with all the watches in the Aero Marquis line, the limited production quantity is not due to artificial scarcity but the fact that since they are made from genuine historic metal, once that metal has been used, they can’t produce any more.
Price and Specs:
More details at Sopwith.
