TT-58R

A British Icon of Motorsport (only 58 builds)

Featuring a machined disc cut from the drive shaft of the 1958 race winning Aston Martin DBR1 driven by Stirling Moss.

The TT-58R not only embodies a Time and Place, but a proud celebration of British motor racing. Britain has a rich unrivalled motorsport pedigree which is just as vibrant and successful today as it was when we pioneered it. The sport courses through our veins and our senses are overwhelmed by the thrill and danger of life on the edge: man vs machine.

This classic Zero West timepiece has strong minimalist lines, an instrument inspired motorsport dial, smooth case and contrasting matt black DSL lugs. TT-58R is British designed and engineered and born out of our great British motorsport heritage. (read the full story further down this page)

The watch is powered by a Swiss ETA 2824 automatic movement thus ensuring it never misses a beat and is fitted with a custom black ZW aerospace grade rubber strap and bespoke stainless steel pin buckle

Delivery 3/4 Weeks

£3,700.00 £3,083.33

In stock

Technical

Design Attributes

Latitude and Longitude reference Goodwood motor circuit
Date code references the Tourist Trophy event
Dial design takes design ques from the time
Polished 316L exhibition back displaying wire cut disk from the drive shaft of the 1958 race winning DBR1

Case

44mm diameter, brushed 316L stainless steel body
Match machined, black PVD, 316L stainless steel DSL lugs
22mm lug width
Weight 100g including strap

Main Crown

Screw lock & sprung diamond knurled & polished 316L stainless steel with triple seal technology

Crystal

Front: Custom domed box sapphire glass with blue AR coating on the internal surface
Rear: flat sapphire glass with reverse printed graphic

Movement

ETA 2824
28,800vph
25 jewels
Self-winding ball bearing rotor
Power reserve ~38 hours
Water resistance: 10ATM (100m) 100% tested

Dial

Black enamel dial with gloss white raised markers and 12 O’clock disc

Hands

Skeletonised drilled matt white hour

and minute hand
Vintage red sweep hand

Dimensions

44mm diameter
14.1mm thick
22mm lug width
49.6mm lug to lug pin spacing

Strap

22/20mm Zero West custom military and aerospace grade cross-linked fluoroelastomer rubber. 1 fixed and 1 sliding keeper
Reverse sculptured relief
Polished 316L stainless steel steel buckle

with etched ZW logo

THE BEST OF TIMES FOR BRITISH MOTORSPORT

THE RACE

THE DRIVERS

THE CAR

THE RACE

The sixth and final round of prestigious Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy held in West Sussex was the pinnacle of endurance motor racing and drew entrants from around the world. At 14:00 the Union Jack fell to signal the start of the 4-hour endurance race and the eager drivers dashed Le Mans style to their cars. The Astons were dominant from the start and soon established an unassailable lead up against Porsche, Jaguar D-Type, Lotus and A.C-Bristol to name a few. The race was frantic and saw some accidents and mechanical failures. Multiple pit stops ensued but the David Brown Aston Martins finished 1-2-3, separated by only a few seconds and having covered 148 laps at an average speed of 88.324mph, a full four laps ahead of the fourth placed Porsche.

THE DRIVERS

The winning drivers on that day were Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks. Brooks was born in 1932 and known as the “racing dentist” because as well as racing cars he trained at his father’s dental practice. He competitively raced both sports and F1 cars between 1956 and 1961 driving for Vanwall, BRM, Ferrari and Aston Martin amongst others. Moss was born in 1927 and described by many as “the greatest driver never to win the World Championship”. He drove competitively for ten years between 1951 and 1961 in both sports and F1 cars racing for Mercedes, Maserati, Vanwall, Aston Martin and Lotus to name a few. He notably won the 1955 Italian Mille Miglia 1000-mile road race in a magnesium alloy bodied Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. That drive was described as the “most iconic single day’s drive in motor racing history”.

THE CAR

The winning Aston in the 1958 TT driven by Moss/Brooks was chassis #2 which was originally designed in 1956 by Ted Cutting and his team. It featured a multi-tubular space frame chassis, advanced front and rear suspension and a lightweight 20-gauge aluminium and magnesium alloy body shell. The shape was sleek and had distinctive vents on the side, a design feature that would become standard on many future Astons. The car was designed primarily for sports and endurance racing and though between 1956 and 1959 had many different engine configurations, the DBR1 would go on to became one of the most icon sports car of all time.

TIME: 13/09/1958 – PLACE: 50.8591°N 0.7530°W

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

THE ICONIC DBR1

Designing and making motorsport watches is part of our DNA so when presented with a glimmer to obtain a genuine piece of legendary British motorsport history, we had to peruse it.

Opportunities like this rarely ever materialise, so when we were offered the chance to own one of the 1958 Aston Martin drive shafts from DBR1/chassis 2, we jumped at it. For those in the know, DBR1/2 is part of motorsport royalty, having won the 1958 TT at Goodwood, driven By Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks. The same car went on to win the 1959 Le Mans 24 hours with Carroll Shelby at the wheel. It has an impeccable heritage and the drive shaft has been in the same family who owned Aston Martin in the 1980’s.

Once in possession of the drive shaft assembly, we then had to present it in a watch back but without altering the external form. To do that would be an engineering challenge so we decided to use EDM wire cutting to remove a core of steel from the centre of the solid shaft. This meant drilling a hole less than 1mm diameter over a length of nearly 250mm and then passing a very fine wire through it to start the EDM process of profile cutting a 22mm diameter core.

We only had one chance of getting this right but the results were perfect and we had our core of precious drive shaft steel. The core was then wire cut into slices, hand finished, waxed and bonded into a machine turned aluminium disk for mounting into TT-58R’s watch back. Finally the precious DBR1 driveshaft is sealed by a custom printed sapphire crystal making it one of the most striking watch backs we have ever made.

ONLY 58 BUILDS