Czapek Goes Racing With The Faubourg de Cracovie Crossroads Lightning Chronograph

Czapek isn't a stranger to sports watches. In fact, they have the Faubourg de Cracovie collection which is a very straightforward and sporty chronograph. And since chronographs are so heavily linked to racing, it only makes sense that Czapek would experiment with a motorsport-themed chrono as well. This is exactly what the new Czapek Faubourg de Cracovie Crossroads Lightning is. It's the first Czapek styled for motorsport. The colors come from the helmet of Jacopo Mazza, a young Swiss GT driver: a black dial with silver and red accents.

The case is stainless steel, polished and brushed, 41.5mm wide with a lug-to-lug of 49mm. The caseband is hollowed out so the crown protectors can sit flush with the integrated chronograph pushers, which keeps the profile smooth. The crystal is a vintage-style glassbox sapphire with anti-reflective coating, and the caseback is sapphire crystal too. Water resistance is 50 meters, which is OK, but could always be better.

The dial is made with Metalem, Czapek's long time collaborator, and is incredibly well done. The base is made out of Alloy 401, which is gold, platinum and palladium, with a hand-guilloché cut pattern and a deep black finish. The Crossroads pattern is straight, widely spaced lines that look like tire tread. The tachymeter on the flange is done in a red gradient, lighter at the top and darker at the base, separated from the dial by a silver minutes/seconds track. The two snailed silver sub-dials sit at 9 o’clock (12-hour counter) and 3 o’clock (30-minute counter), with circular-brushed frames. Small seconds markers are printed straight onto the black dial at 6 o’clock, so the guilloché isn’t interrupted, with a date window color-matched beside them. All three sub-dial hands are red lacquer, and so is the tip of the central chronograph seconds hand. The baton indices and the hour and minute hands are filled with Super-LumiNova.

Inside is calibre SXH3, an integrated automatic chronograph built by Vaucher to Czapek’s specifications. It has a column wheel and vertical clutch, runs at 5Hz (36,000vph) to time to 1/10th of a second, and has a 65-hour power reserve. It’s COSC-certified and measures 30mm by 6.95mm. The bridges are anthracite, sandblasted and diamond-polished, and the openworked rotor is pink gold. Two straps are available, in Alcantara and calfskin, both on deployant clasps.

The Czapek Faubourg de Cracovie Crossroads Lightning is limited to 18 pieces and it's priced at €34,600, excluding tax. See more on the Czapek website.