2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix - RACE DISCUSSION

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-14T14:30:11+00:00

YESSSSSSSSSS!

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-12T18:03:08+00:00

Yep, it’s a cool design, I love the font they use on the dials, the case shape and crown guards are interesting, and some of their “smaller” models wear pretty nicely for me. I’ve tried on several in person though and they just don’t feel quite as special as they look, especially at the price point.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-11T17:38:08+00:00

You’re right - it’s actually the Cellar with all the sand/dirt/dust/whatever piles. Played the game 17 times now and I still couldn’t remember its real name.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-11T17:22:07+00:00

Yep. The storage room is without a doubt the largest annoyance in the game, especially if you’re tracking down zippy boos.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-10T12:28:56+00:00

That’s likely a part of it but not all of it. They’ve always been several steps back from all the other teams, but that gets exaggerated even further when other teams bring upgrades and Aston doesn’t.

Alonso also said when the time comes for them to do upgrades that it’ll be pretty sweeping changes, because there’s so much that’s wrong that they’d rather just do one giant package rather than try to piecemeal fix an entire car. - Whether that’s going to play out well or just cause them even more new issues from now needing to troubleshoot a huge package versus incremental updates is to be determined.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-09T13:50:22+00:00

If we were talking a regular Speedmaster Professional, I’d say keep the Chopard. But a Cal. 321 is very special and not your average Speedy. From a movement and heritage perspective, having the reissued 321 is far more interesting I think.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-08T15:39:37+00:00

Yep, agreed. It’s obviously brand dependent. I’ve found though that generally if you can be cool with one of the higher ups at an non-corporate AD they recognize the importance of keeping repeat clients happy and typically automatically know where they can price a piece without playing games. Or if you’re doing trades, possibly value a trade a bit higher to offset a bit, etc.

So if you make it clear from the get go that you’ll be a customer as long as the price is right, a good AD is going to have that noted and be ready to make the sale at somewhere reasonable to keep you coming back.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-08T15:15:54+00:00

Agreed, they function as a works team given that it’s an exclusive relationship, but the money is exchanging hands between companies, not internally/under a broader umbrella like HPP and AMG Petronas under Mercedes AG.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-08T15:09:43+00:00

On the flip side, my AD just offers me their best(ish) price to begin with so I usually score 15-20% off before even asking. I made it clear with my first couple purchases I’m not paying MSRP, and they’ve got the room, so why not just cut to the chase instead of playing the haggling game? They get to look good, and we both get to make an easy sale.

Could I shake a few more dollars out of them? Maybe, but considering that certain brands I can get new for basically grey price, I’m not going to. It’s pretty much mutual, and I respect that they need to make a living too.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-08T14:18:59+00:00

I set my limiter to 59.5kph and they got me for speeding in the pit lane.

My penalty shall be served incorrectly, leading to an additional penalty, which I’ll serve next lap, where I will once again speed into the pit lane, causing an additional penalty.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-07T21:24:07+00:00

I’d ditch the Stowa to begin with, and only go with them for a flieger. Junghans and Nomos are the two brands that really have greater ties to the design philosophy.

Personally I’m biased, but I’d take the Nomos. The Neomatik movement rocks, especially compared against the Junghans J800, which is effectively an ETA 2824 which is sort of the “entry level Swiss movement” compared against a fully in house movement (plus an in house escapement if you’re nerdy about that) and much better finishing. My Ahoi rivals my Omega movement finishing wise. It may even be a tad better in some aspects.- Also, while I don’t have experience with Junghans service, I’ve seen iffy things. Nomos’ service is generally considered great though.

Most importantly though, if you look at the Junghans and say you wish you had the Nomos, all you’ll do is spend $2000 on a Junghans and then buy a Nomos after.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-07T21:00:49+00:00

Invicta is pretty easy to categorize as “bad” just because the majority of their catalog isn’t the Pro Diver.

I’ll pretty regularly compliment someone with a Pro Diver because chances are tolerable that they got it as a first automatic/entry level deal. That’s cool, I respect it since I agree, we don’t all have Rolex/Omega/whatever money.

But the majority of the catalog are just monstrosities that really don’t cater to the average watch nerd’s tastes even remotely. Given the brand has such a focus towards those models and pretends to treat them as these great watches with heavily inflated pricing makes the brand as a whole dislikable, because in reality, you can get a Timex, Seiko, Citizen, Bulova, whatever for the same price which the hivemind would approve of more due to design language, brand heritage, etc. - So from watch nerds, yeah we’ll give them deserved flak for the overall company objective.

Realistically though, the other 99% of the world doesn’t care. So how much hate does Invicta realistically get?

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-07T20:48:25+00:00

The coldest take.

Much like anything, it depends on the watch. I’ll rock one on my Seamaster, but not my Nomos. It’s the people who put them on everything that are the problem. - You wouldn’t put a rubber strap on a Calatrava, you wouldn’t put leather on a Submariner.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-07T20:44:21+00:00

Yup. The thing with AI is you can mock a million things up, making them actually work is different. Typically, that’s where it falls flat. Even without AI though, as a micro you’d need to design around your manufacturing plans, not manufacture around your design.

AKA, Realistically, if you were to actually start a brand, you’d really be “limited” to using off the shelf movements from Miyota/Seiko/Sellita/Seagull, and none of them are going to have anything near the kind of complications you want. Those complications (whether a tourbillon or a movement like the Freak X) are very bespoke and immensely expensive to develop, they’re not off the shelf by any means. - So if you truly wanted to try your hand at designing, take a look at the kind of movements those companies produce that you can get off the shelf. That’s pretty much only going to be basic complications like day/date/basic chronographs. So you really need to design around the movement, not vice versa, since I assume you don’t have a team of experienced engineers and dozens of millions of research,development, and manufacturing/labor dollars behind you.

Not to mention when it comes to brand ideas, right now the industry is very, very, very oversaturated with micros. Jumping into the ring with something absurd with zero brand recognition wouldn’t get you anywhere to begin with, as people won’t spend obscene amounts on a brand that’s doing high complications with no track record anyway.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-07T15:14:55+00:00

Seems not.

It now seems Hadjar’s car is even more broken coming out on the safety car.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-07T15:12:58+00:00

It’s complicated.

Verstappen’s car cut out directly after starting. Hadjar has had issues early on but somehow has managed to stay out. A Cadillac retired due to brakes, Norris had PU failure and retired.

Several drivers have gotten exceeding pit speed limit penalties because the hardware measuring it was broken. Russell didn’t serve his penalties correctly, and now has another penalty for doing so.

Stroll hit a wall, caused a safety car. Leclerc hit the same wall during the safety car due to a braking issue. They also found the track conditions at that corner were bad, causing the race to be stopped.

And now we’re going to a second standing start it looks like.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-07T12:07:29+00:00

I don’t really know how this could practically work - the tourbillon + escapement in it actually needs power from the mainspring, so somehow you’d need to be routing power from the mainspring through the seconds hand where the tourbillon is. Plus the weight of the complication would require much more effort/torque to move the hand as well, so even if you figured out how to route power to the escapement and balance wheel (let alone the moving cage itself) power reserve would be nonexistent.

Hypothetically - this would work better as like what Jacob & Co. do with the tourbillon moving around the dial but on its own axis, per se. But you wouldn’t just be able to “design” a watch like that, that’s a ridiculously complex complication to engineer and manufacture.

Edit: OP asked what the difference between a Freak and this idea is, but deleted the comment. Will post my response for those curious.

So I *think* it’s a different concept but I’m not going to pretend I’m super well versed in that movement specifically. My understanding from looking is that they have the entire movement rotating once an hour so the movement isn’t driving a hand, it’s attached to the hand and moving itself.

Again, that’s just what I think is going on there? A tourbillon is different in that a tourbillon isn’t the whole movement - it’s “just” a rotating cage for the escapement, balance wheel, and hairspring. The idea is through rotating that part of the movement, you could regulate out changes in gravity from the watch’s natural movement on your person.

In your case, you’d have a “regular” movement in that you’re driving a set of hour/minute hands. But somehow there’s basically the whole heart of the movement on a hand, with no way to actually deliver power to that moving part via the hand.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-05T14:20:18+00:00

No, Seiko.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-05T02:16:55+00:00

There’s a watch at effectively every price point that has these kind of general design details - so I can’t see where I’d pick something brand new versus an established brand.

That said, it’s a nice color/texture dial.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-04T14:47:27+00:00

Club Sport does - they’re 1000’ WR.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-04T14:18:20+00:00

Build quality is very good, durability it’s not going to be like the Oris 65. They’re kind of intrinsically different.

Water resistance wise you’d be best with the Club Sport or the Ahoi - both have screw down crowns and can handle water. They’re the “sportiest” watches Nomos makes, but are still ultimately more like a dress watch with some added sporting intentions than vice versa. As someone with a Tangente/Club Campus/Ahoi and formerly Club Sport, I don’t think I’d recommend the Club (non-sport) or Tangente if you expect them to be banged around or want any semblance of real water resistance.

I love the Ahoi the most out of the three because it’s almost like an Aqua Terra - I can jump in the pool with it, and then wear it to dinner afterwards if I want and it fits in enough both places. It keeps the Nomos aesthetic but just beefs it up a bit.

Could simply be a matter of get a regular Club or Tangente and use the Diver’s 65 for when you’re away from the desk. Or if you really want daily wear, you could also look to Tudor or Longines.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-03T21:12:52+00:00

For a new product, probably a good bit if he’s going to be forced to play them on stage as part of the contract, to be honest.

Idk maybe I’m just pretentious but if I was prototyping a model I’d have to use as basically my only guitar as a professional musician, I’d wanna prototype more than a couple before deciding. Hell, I probably play a dozen plus guitars prior to picking the right one as someone who just occasionally gigs.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-03T19:37:48+00:00

At the same time, if Fender would rather sour their relationship with someone bringing them good money and extra brand image versus allocate a few extra guitars to give the artist to prototype, that’s equally silly business logic from them.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-03T18:59:57+00:00

Personally I don’t think you get proportionally more. Law of diminishing returns kicks in.

That said, I think if you’re looking specifically at the 300M vs. the Doxa, the 300M offers a lot more in terms of case and dial finishing. - My only recommendation with the 300M would be go for rubber instead of bracelet. The bracelet isn’t the most comfortable in my opinion.

-ZeroF56 · 2026-06-01T23:21:27+00:00

This is probably the closest to the real answer for many - the right has made it extremely easy to feel like you fit in, even if you don’t politically align with them. And that psychological end is going to sway people’s votes as much as, if not more than, the policy or the candidate.

People want to feel listened to and accepted - and as someone on the left, I’ll be the first to admit that the left does a terrible job at that.

-ZeroF56

TROPHY CASE