Vintage dashboard instruments were essentially designed to give optimum performance and legibility and to resist the punishments of weather and vibration. So the Tazio Nuvolari chronograph was duly devised to live up to the same criteria.

Readability is optimised by the generously sized inset dials, and the tritiated Arabic numerals and minute and hour hands are perfectly legible even in the darkness. The black dial and the antiglare sapphire glass combine to facilitate recognition of the readings and quick checks of the tachometer.

The Tazio Nuvolari is a typical chronograph by Eberhard & Co., a company known as a pioneer in the history of chronometry.

So chances are if Tazio Nuvolari were to sit at the wheel today, he would surely be wearing “his chronograph” tied around his wrist. Maybe, too, we could even see him smile with pleasure at a little feature on the left of the dial that makes this chronograph even more exclusive; it’s the stylised image of a mascot tortoise given to him by poet Gabriele D’Annunzio with the dedication, “To the fastest driver in the world, the slowest animal”. So, the facsimile engraving of the champion’s signature on the caseback was, obviously enough, a veritable must.

www.eberhard-co-watches.ch