Drive de Cartier is the latest in a long line of timepieces in which elegance is combined with a very particular image and lifestyle

Picture a watch able to embody qualities such as free spirit, aesthetic, elegance, style, instinct, passion, confidence and modernity. This is how Cartier describes its latest creation in the field of timekeeping, linking it to a certain attitude and state of mind, far from mundane existence and closer to the true art of savoir vivre.

The new Drive de Cartier is for a man that the French design house says cannot be categorised; an apparently simple man who ends up revealing a sophisticated personality and image, whose main talent is a natural aptitude for singular style and freedom. It is therefore no surprise that, with this description, we end up visualising a man who appreciates the finer things in life and the pleasure that these things can bring him. Or, in other words, the secret ambition of anyone who sees their image as an extension of their very personality.

From this perspective, watches are used as a reflection of the person wearing them, moving away from mere status symbol and proof of personal success, and denoting rather a particular appreciation of the beauty intrinsic to the object and of the arts that gave rise to it. It’s just like the car driven by this “Cartier” man, who turns out to be a connoisseur sensitive to form, to the precision of bodywork, to the right tonality of a patina, to the emotion that driving brings him.

The new Drive de Cartier aims to be the wristwatch of a passionate man, in a nod to models from the past inspired precisely by motor cars. Already famed examples, such as the Roadster or the Must 21 Autoscaph, marked a period of success for the maison, with the distinctive shape of their cases and the many details on their dials invoking a look that is increasingly absent from cars made today.

The Drive de Cartier continues this tradition, in which guilloché decorative patterning on the dials brings to mind the design of a radiator grill and the winding crown takes on the shape of a screw head. Even the finishes seem to have been made to meet the precise parameters required by the connoisseur, in which textured satin finishes on the sides alternate with polished surfaces on the top of the watch.

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Available with cases in pink gold or steel, dials in black, grey or white, accompanied by the traditional Roman numerals that are present in so many of the brand’s creations, the Drive de Cartier also offers different options in terms of its manufacture mechanical mechanisms and, as a result, of the information the watch can relay.

And while in the simplest model, which tells the hours, minutes, date and has a small second dial at 6 o’clock, the rhythm is assured by the 1904-PS MC automatic movement, Cartier has prepared another version with the 1904-FU MC movement, which adds a second time zone, a day/night indicator and a large date indicator at 12 o’clock.

But fine watchmaking has not been forgotten, with the collection including a version that features a flying tourbillon joined by an embossed dial. The 9452 MC movement comes, of course, with the traditional Poinçon de Genève certification.

The Drive de Cartier is thus a watch in which both automotives and good taste definitively make their presence felt, and where tight curves and flowing lines create a modern and elegant identity in harmony, with that typical Cartier style.

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