Hey WatchEx!

For sale is this rare vintage Marlboro "Racing Watch", produced by R.Chatelain SA in c.1989/90.

Marlboro, the famous cigarette company, was a prominent sponsor of Formula 1 back when tobacco sponsorship was allowed. They sponsored many leading F1 teams. In 1989/90 they were sponsoring both the Ferrari and McLaren F1 teams when they came out with this watch. This was was supposedly only given to customers of Ferrari dealerships at the time and was never sold to the public, hence why there are so few of them, making this a true collector's item.

R.Chatelain SA (Roger Chatelain), a Swiss company that was based in Genève, produced the watch, which I assume means designed and had the case manufactured. The dial has an intricate triangle texture that makes it look almost like a silver carbon fibre. The red Marlboro arches adorn the dial in a tasteful way so as to not be too loud. The rehaut is angled and contains what looks like a tachymeter for measuring speed or distance. The bidirectional friction-fit bezel is a Seiko Flightmaster-style bezel in it's design and contains the slide rule that allows you to calculate multiplication and division, as well as converting MPH to KPH, nautical miles to statute miles, fuel consumption estimates, tip percentages and even temperature or currency conversions without digital tools all of which have some sort of connection to Formula 1. It also contains the compass markings. 

The stainless steel case has great proportions and being 40mm and a relatively compact lug to lug, it will suit most wrists. It has a finely brushed top surface and polished sides and back. The 3/4 and side view is my favourite as R.Chatelain have done a great job at making an already slim case look even slimmer with the large chamfer on the case back going into the sides combined with a nice turn-down of the lugs.

Powering the watch is a Japan-made Miyota calibre 6W60 (Citizen 6860) movement which is a very interesting movement due to having no crown. The bottom sub dial dictates the mode of which there are only two: Time and Chronograph. Push the bottom right pusher to choose the mode. When you select Chronograph, the seconds hand whizzes to the zero mark ready to start timing as a stopwatch. The main seconds hand acts as second elapsed and the top sub dial moves at twice the speed to measure the sub-seconds for the first minute, then after that it measures the minutes elapsed.

The case back is a screw-down type to help with the stated 5ATM of water resistance but as this is a vintage watch (and as with ALL vintage watches) it should be treated as having no water resistance unless professionally re-tested for its stated water resistance. 

Brand new battery fitted. It comes on a soft (pliable) and perforated rally strap and a brushed stainless steel buckle which I don't believe is original to the watch.

The watch is in excellent condition considering it was made over 45 years ago and I've only seen a tiny handful of these for sale in the past of which this is the only one in this colour way that I've come across. General minor wear is expected and there are some very slight scratches on the crystal. All the functions work well and it tells good time.

Looking for $235 net (buyer pays Paypal or Wise fee) + shipping

Dimensions are:
40mm x 46.9mm x 9.6mm
Lug Width 20mm
(according to my callipers)

Bought in Japan.

*Returns accepted but all return postage costs are the buyer's responsibility in all circumstances and any re-import fees that I have to pay when receiving the watch will be deducted from the refund amount.