Cars and Watches: Pairing Four Supercars With Four Watches

Cars brought Alec to watches. Now, the two worlds are closer than ever. For Alec of SK Speed and Time, watches were never separate from cars. They were an extension of the same obsession.

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Before he left the CURATED Invitational Montana, we asked him to prove it: four cars you would expect to find at CURATED, and one watch for the wrist of whoever is driving each of them. His answers are at the end of this piece.

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"There's a lot of crossover between the automotive and horology world. You can look at professional racing, collaborations between manufacturers, and even watch designers drawing inspiration from automotive designers and engineers, and vice versa."

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Alec has been a car enthusiast all his life, and his first job was at a classic car dealership in Maryland. But a decade working in IT took him away from the automotive world, and by the time COVID arrived, he was looking for a route back into something he genuinely cared about.

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That route turned out to be watches. His first luxury watch was a Breitling. Then, at the car meets he was already attending, he began noticing what was on everyone else's wrist.

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"I started noticing that other people were wearing nice watches at car events. I thought maybe this was a good way to get back into doing something that I love. It tied into something I already loved."

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What began as an experiment became SK Speed and Time. Today, Alec buys, sells, trades and collects watches, applying much of the same thinking to them that serious collectors apply to significant cars.

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MORE THAN THE OBJECT

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That way of thinking is also why the relationship between SK Speed and Time and CURATED makes sense.

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For Alec, the similarity starts with seeing a car or watch as something more than inventory.

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"We display what we carry as art more than anything. How does that connect emotionally with the collector? Why does that watch, or why does that car really click with that person?"

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That emotional connection is backed by something considerably more forensic: authenticity, provenance and detail.

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With a watch, Alec wants to understand its history, ownership and documentation. With a collector car, the questions may be different, but the philosophy is much the same: originality, provenance, correct components, history and condition all matter.

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"At the beginning, it seems tedious. But in the long run, it ends up developing huge trust with clients."

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It was something Alec recognised immediately when he first visited CURATED.

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"I'm very picky about every little detail. The first time I stepped into CURATED, I realised they were the same way."

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"The first time I stepped into CURATED, I realised they were the same way."

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There is another shared belief: you don't need to sell everything.

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Alec is selective about the watches he acquires and recommends, just as CURATED is selective about the cars that enter its inventory.

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"I won't go seek anything out unless I truly believe in it. I know that when one of my clients buys it, it's going to be a smart decision."

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For both businesses, the object has to earn its place.

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MONTANA

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That shared philosophy brought SK Speed and Time to the CURATED Invitational Montana as an event partner.

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Alec arrived in his own Lamborghini Murciélago. The car crossed 8,000 miles during the rally; it had covered just 5,900 when he acquired it less than two years earlier.

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He has done plenty of rallies before. Montana was different.

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"Nothing even really close to that calibre. Not only the cars, but how organised it was, the service, the food. Every little detail was mind-blowing. Truly no stone left unturned."

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But beyond the hospitality and organisation, the lasting memory was much simpler.

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Driving.

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"I'm just a car nerd. Driving through beautiful Montana next to actual dream cars, in a dream car. F50s, Carrera GTs, F40s, Koenigseggs, Diablos. The list was absolutely insane."

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"It was what I loved doing as a kid in video games, except I was doing it in real life."

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"There were so many times where I was cruising in my Murciélago and just thinking, wow, this is what I loved doing as a kid in video games and I'm just straight up doing it in real life now."

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FOUR CARS. FOUR WATCHES.

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Before Alec left Montana, we gave him one final challenge.

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Four cars you might reasonably expect to find at CURATED.

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One watch for each.

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LAMBORGHINI DIABLO SE30 / AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK TOURBILLON 26522ST

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A Viola Diablo SE30 demands something equally unapologetic.

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Alec's choice is the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Tourbillon Extra-Thin, ref. 26522ST, a 41mm stainless-steel Royal Oak that pairs its psychedelic purple dial with the Diablo's unmistakable Viola bodywork.

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The stainless-steel construction provides the other connection.

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"The stainless steel gives it that metallic feel of the '90s Diablo with the silver alloy wheels. But, of course, the dial has to match the car."

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Two very different expressions of the same era, and neither interested in subtlety.

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FERRARI F40 / OMEGA SPEEDMASTER RACING MICHAEL SCHUMACHER

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For a red Ferrari F40, Alec went racing.

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The Omega Speedmaster Racing Michael Schumacher edition, reference 3510.61, is a 39mm Speedmaster Reduced with a red dial that Omega released in 1996, early in Schumacher's Ferrari years. It is a considerably more accessible watch than some of the others on the list, but that only makes the pairing more interesting.

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"It's just a really good-looking, vintage-looking piece. It looks like it belongs in an F40."

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A watch Alec also knows personally.

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"One that I had that I wish I never sold."

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LAMBORGHINI MIURA / PAUL NEWMAN DAYTONA

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Then we went back to the beginning.

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The Lamborghini Miura was the car that helped establish CURATED, so we asked Alec what should be on your wrist while driving one through the Swiss Alps.

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His answer came quickly.

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"There's only one watch for that era. Paul Newman Daytona."

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That means the exotic-dial Rolex Cosmograph Daytona, references 6239 through 6265, the manual-wind chronographs whose production began in the same decade as the Miura's.

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Two icons that need very little introduction.

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PORSCHE CARRERA GT / F.P. JOURNE CHRONOMÈTRE OPTIMUM BLACK LABEL

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Finally, a black Carrera GT.

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Alec went somewhere slightly less obvious: the F.P. Journe Chronomètre Optimum Black Label.

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A 40mm platinum case. Black dial. Technically fascinating, incredibly considered and outwardly restrained.

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"It's really sharp and works with the lines of the car well."

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Perhaps the perfect description of both.

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Different disciplines. Different machines.

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But whether it is a mechanical movement on the wrist or twelve cylinders behind you, the attraction is remarkably similar: engineering, design, provenance, rarity and the emotional response created when all of those things come together.

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For Alec, one obsession simply led to another.

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