As a watch journalist, this is what you dream of. It happens less often than I’d like to admit, but when an email lands in your inbox containing images of a new timepiece so striking that you sit bolt upright in your chair before lurching toward the screen for a closer look, your ragged breath caught in the back of your throat, you know you are in the virtual presence of something special.
I began typing this article as my intercity train to Copenhagen rolled out of Hamburg HbF. As someone who loves to work on the go, I rarely take the time to drink in the scenery of the nation’s rushing by the window, but up until that particular day, I’d always made an exception for this journey.
However, the Christopher Ward C12 Loco had my attention 100%...
I might as well have been speeding through the dead of night, so blind I was to the dwindling outskirts of Germany’s famous shipping city. Quite frankly, I couldn’t believe the success of the design looking back at me from my laptop. I thought the Christopher Ward Twelve X was a watershed moment for the model line. It was the piece that finally got me fully on board with Adrian Buchmann’s design, which I’d initially struggled with due to its similarities to his previous work on the Czapek Antarctique.
The X, however, gave me pause for thought. It allowed me to appreciate Adrian’s efforts as stylistically congruous rather than emulative. I thought (wrongly, again) that we’d probably seen the best of what the 12 platform had to offer at under £5,000, but this piece, the C12 Loco, knocks the X’s socks clean off despite coming in around the same price at £3,795 on a rubber strap, or £3,995 on the bracelet (which would be my preference).
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this watch aesthetically, is how different it looks from all the other iterations of the 12. It borrows a little bit of the Bel Canto’s brilliance by employing the hours and minutes sub-dial at 12 o’clock along with the high (very high) box sapphire (3.55mm to be precise), which gives it an entirely unique character.
This is obviously not only good for journalists to have something to write about, but it is also great for existing owners and die-hard fans of the 12. I know a thing or two about mono-model brands thanks to my work with Arcanaut and although I’ve been amazed at how many repeat purchasers we have of watches with identical cases, I very much appreciate the desire of brands to diversify their offering to excite and engage their existing audience.
It wouldn’t matter to me one jot which of the many iterations of the 12 I owned: this model feels like its own thing entirely, and if I’d already been won over by the quality-price ratio of my current Christopher Ward, I would be counting my pennies without a thought in the hope I could secure one of these beauties too.
The Christopher Ward Loco comes in four dial colours. Truth be told, they are all superb. The black has an incredibly edgy vibe to it and looks every bit the haute horlogerie heavyweight it’s clearly looking to for inspiration. The white dial has a lovely depth to it and is the most classic of the bunch. When it comes to ambition, the orange dial definitely takes the crown, and the full-blooded shade chosen here might make it my favourite among them, but the serene, sparkling blue is such a vivid and enticing shade, that I think I’d struggle to ignore that one.
And this is coming from me (I think I have one blue “dial” in my whole collection, and that’s a skeletonised chronograph with barely any dial to speak of).
Horologically, the main talking points here are the exposed, free-sprung balance wheel at six o’clock and the fact that it’s the most arresting component of what is Christopher Ward’s second in-house calibre, the CW-003 following the SH21 (which has been re-dubbed the CW-001).
One can’t help but notice the three-digit referencing system adopted here. It speaks to Christopher Ward’s intentions. If I were any other brand at this price point, that kind of vision and statement would have me quaking in my boots… Now that the brand is up and running on the in-house side of things, expect an avalanche of subtle tweaks on the CW-### platform in years to come.
Although the free-sprung, variable inertia balance wheel will gobble up most of the attention, the CW-003 boasts an incredible 144-hour power reserve, which is a whole day more than the CW-001. It derives this healthy run-time from double barrels, which must be manually wound by a generously sized crown. Just to reiterate: this watch retails for less than £4,000. It’s another power move that can’t help but deepen the respect the industry and its observers already have for the brand and its mission.
This version of the 12 case is a total redesign. It comprises three components, measures 41mm, and has a much more dramatic drop-off at the lugs to ensure it retains the original model’s wearability. The metal portion of the case is 9.75mm thick, but the actual height of the watch (thanks to the box sapphires on the front and back) is 13.7mm (the back crystal protrudes 0.4mm).
While that is arguably a little thick for a 41mm watch, the sapphires do wonders when it comes to the reduction of visual weight. This is a trick I first learned from my good friend Sylvain Berneron during a discussion we were having about the famous Bernhard Lederer CIC watches.
What I wonder about Christopher Ward now is where the brand will go. With models like the C12 Loco and the Bel Canto now clearly the poster boys of this British brand’s portfolio, will we see the subtle (or seismic) discontinuation of the lower-end pieces that grew CW into the powerhouse it is today? Will the brand’s average price point spike as they continue to prefer these incredible value propositions?
The WG team were lucky enough to see the C12 Loco collection in the metal at a launch event in London. So, naturally, we posed that exact question to Mike France - the helmsmen himself. You can catch the entire interview here but one thing was made crystal clear, Christopher Ward's commitment to true accessibility doesn't end here.
"We will never ever ever ever forget" Mike said, "that it's just as important to produce beautiful watches at entry level (for us, anyway) as it is to produce the sophistication of the C12 Loco".
You heard it here first, it doesn't have to be one or the other and, for now, the brand are more than happy stretching their collection without moving the general price point.
That said, if CW continues to drop hot releases like this that delight their more long-tenured and well-heeled customers and inspire the would-be buyers of less exciting fare to save up a little longer for a real humdinger, we could be looking at a very different brand in three to five years.
For that iteration of Christopher Ward, would the sky be the limit? Right now, I’d say the sky doesn’t seem high enough...
Christopher Ward C12 Loco
Technical Specifications
- Availability: Open Series
- Case diameter: 41mm
- Case height: 13.7mm
- Lug-to-lug : 47.5mm
- Case material: Stainless Steel
- Water resistance: 3 ATM (30m)
- Movement: CW-003
- Winding: Manual
- Power reserve: 144 hours
- Jewels: 29
- Frequency: 4Hz/28,800 vph
- Timing tolerance: -0/+7 seconds per day
- £3,795/$4,595/€4,950 on a rubber strap with deployant clasp.
- £3,995/$4,825/€5,205 on an integrated steel bracelet.
