With its new Breitling for Bentley Barnato 42 Midnight Carbon, the Swiss manufacturer keeps gradually putting on a pretty strict diet its best-selling models designed in partnership with Bentley.
Packing them in smaller bodies, but still offering a nice combination of superb build quality and mass-produced movements that are finely tuned to the highest standards of accuracy, the company introduces a new generation of accessories designed not only for basketballs stars, but also for an ordinary CEO obsessed with the British motorsport legacy.
Delivered in a relatively compact body around 42 millimeters wide, the new watch is some 7 mm smaller in diameter than the gargantuan 49-mm Barnato Racing Chronograph from early 2011.
Although the watch is around 15 percent smaller in diameter, it keeps intact the proportions of its angled body, the high-contrast dial, and the notched bezel that features the pattern reminiscent of a Bentley radiator grille.
Well, perhaps the setting crown and the chronograph push-pieces at 2 and 4 o’clock look a little larger, but that’s only for the better since the parts provide the watch with a bit more brutal, rugged appearance.
The main differences between the 49 mm and this new 42 mm model are limited to the dial.
The new watch ditches the rotating steering-wheel-style disks of the original in favor of more traditional indicators. With its thin mirror-polished hands and high-contrast, easily readable numerals, the new exterior strongly reminds me of instrument gauges on the recent Bentley Continental grand-tourer.
Speaking of readability, I must note that the Barnato 42 Midnight Carbon offers superb legibility even in total darkness offering more than enough Superluminova in all the right places.
The luminous substance covers not only the usual hour and minute hands but is also present on the chronograph hands (a 12-hour sub-dial at 6 o’clock and a 30-minute totalizer at 9 o’clock), as well as on the applied hour markers.
It is also nice to point out that the indices sport thin strips of silver-toned Superluminova. Almost invisible in broad daylight, they provide good nighttime legibility.
As for the movement, the original ETA 2892-based caliber was swapped for a slightly more advanced Breitling 25B movement. Being a COSC-certified chronometer-grade version of the ETA 2892-A2, it was basically a drop-in replacement.
The watch will arrive in a limited lot of just 1000 numbered pieces.
See also: Quartz-Powered Breitling Avenger Seawolf Chrono Blacksteel
Photos: Breitling
Breitling for Bentley Barnato 42 Midnight Carbon Chronograph specification
Price: $8500 (MSRP at the time of writing, ref. M4139024-BB85-217S)
Movement: Automatic, caliber Breitling 25B (base ETA 2892), COSC-certified chronometer, Swiss Made
Number of jewels: 38
Movement frequency: 28,800 vph
Power reserve: 42 hours
Functions: Hours, minutes, small seconds, date, chronograph
Case: Black steel
Shape: Round
Size: 42.00 mm
Crystal: Sapphire, cambered, anti-reflective on both sides
Back: Solid
Dial: Black
Numerals: Arabic
Hour markers: Luminous
Hands: Steel, luminous
Water resistance: 100 meters
Strap: Black rubber strap