Steve McQueen 'f***king loved' this watch, reimagined in super-strong horse leather
Hanhart has released a limited edition timepiece inspired by one of Steve McQueen's favourite chronographs.
The Hanhart 417 and 417 ES chronograph had two important customers. The German army — specifically its pilots — and Steve McQueen. Quite how a 417 ED ended up on the wrist of one of America's most famous actors in the early 1960s is anyone's guess.
Despite being one of his favourite timepieces, it didn’t, however, come with huge fanfare like his TAG Heuer Monaco moment in the 1971 film Le Mans. Instead, its use was documented in family photographs.
'It was always assumed that my grandfather acquired the watch somewhere around The Great Escape time,' says his grandson, Chase McQueen. 'As we were going through the archives and talking to my grandmother [Neile Adams], we actually figured out that he probably acquired it somewhere in late 1960 or early 1961, because he's wearing the watch in a little known movie called The War Lover, where he plays a bomber pilot named Buzz Rickson. If you look, you can see the Hanhart watch in that film, so we know he discovered that watch at least two years before The Great Escape.'
Nearly 70 years on, Hanhart has released its first official Steve McQueen edition, developed in collaboration with Chase and his sister Madison McQueen. 'Projects like this are important to us,' Chase says. 'Not only is it a way for us to discover our family history and who my grandfather was, but it’s a way for younger generations to understand why he was so cool and to be able to touch and feel and see some of the things that made him who he was.'
The 417 ES Steve McQueen Limited Edition No.1 (about £2,185) is limited to just 300 examples worldwide. The McQueen family was keen for the replica to look as original as possible — with subtle nods to their grandfather, including his signature. Throughout the process the team referred to various photographs and films. The goal was to balance authenticity and modernity, in order to bring the right mixture of 1960s and 2020s together. The final watch features a historic Hanhart logo and aged radium lume — so the hands and numerals illuminate in a warm hue reminiscent of the time period.
One of the most reproduced images of Steve McQueen was taken by John Dominis as the actor prepared for a photoshoot in his Palm Spring bungalow. In it, he's wearing the Hanhart watch. The revolver was not loaded.
'The most difficult part was that we don’t have high resolution photos from the 1960s,' says Felix Wallner, joint CEO of Hanhart. 'When zooming in, we saw some images where we think the lower line says "shockproof", so we put the signature there. In addition, we looked closely at the strap because we wanted to rebuild it as good as we could. In the colour photos, you can see that the strap he wore was a very dark brown cuff strap.'
The contemporary strap is made from a material called Shell Cordovan, by Italian tannery Comipel. The horse leather is said to be four times more robust than cow leather. An exhibition case back means that the wearer can see the flyback mechanism dancing away in the hand-wound piece.
One of Hanhart's chronograph's best-known identifiers is the red pusher — and this special-edition timepiece is no different. According to company legend, a pilot's wife painted his pusher red so that he would think of her when he used it — and come home safe. (The boring reality is that pressing the pusher resets the time, so it was painted red to warn off pilots from pushing it unnecessarily.)
In a nod to the romantic tale, each Steve McQueen edition comes with a bottle of red nail polish, concealed in the box underneath a plaque bearing the example’s number. It’s also accompanied by an ‘official timekeeping licence’, inspired by McQueen’s 1964 international racing license. The original document sold at auction in 2009 for $42,700. Hanhart’s version is signed by the individual watchmaker, and Chase and Madison McQueen.
McQueen with his first wife, Neile Adams, an actress who made more than 20 appearances in films and television series between 1952 and 1991.
The company crafts its watches in Germany's Black Forest, surrounded by steep hills studded with sheep, goats and cows. In McQueen’s honour, I cut through this perfectly peaceful environment in a 1969 Corvette Stingray while wearing a Limited Edition No.1 — in the name of journalism and to get a taste of what he would have felt, all those years ago.
'While we were simultaneously working with Felix, I would run to my grandmother [Neile] and ask her because she was the one who was around and was there when he had the original, and she gave me a great quote,' says Chase. 'She said, "You know, I'm sorry, honey, I'm 94, I don't know where that watch ended up, but I can tell you, he f***ing loved that watch."'
