Mr Jones Watches has teamed up with custom motorcycle creators Untitled Motorcycles to create a unique watch: MOTOCHRONO. The watch has a moving frieze that shows a day in the life of Untitled Motorcycles as they take an old, neglected motorbike and breathe new life into it.
The time display on Motochrono is based on the Sun and Moon pocket watches from the 17th century, these watches predate the standardization of concentric hour and minute hands. On these watches (as the name implies) an image of the Sun or the Moon passes across the crescent shaped sky, the sun marking the hours from 6am to 6pm and the moon the hours from 6pm to 6am. With Motochrono we have replaced the image of the Sun and the Moon with the front and rear headlights of the motorbike.
In the center of the dial are the minute and seconds hands, these work in the conventional manner. The markers around the dial are based on the classic English speedometer designed by Smiths, who by coincidence also manufactured a line of watches. Even the strap was created especially for this watch with the transversal stitching echoing the padding on a motorcycle seat.
The movement that powers Motochrono is a mechanical automatic, which means it has no batteries and no digital technology. Just like a motorbike engine it can be stripped down, serviced and reassembled to keep it running for a lifetime.
This watch was produced by Mr Jones in London. They printed and assembled the components in their workshop in Camberwell, south London. The colors were mixed by hand and laid down in turn using their pad printer. The watches were assembled, tested and adjusted by Mr Jones before being packed up for release. As this is a hand made article there may be some variation on the tone and alignment of the print colors, we believe that this adds to the character of the individual watches.