We are genuinely thrilled to announce our latest collaboration with racing legend John Surtees OBE – the only driver to win world championship titles on two and four wheels!
The collaboration will be officially launched at the Bonhams Auction during the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed on Friday, June 27th, 2014.
Details, see below.
The prototype ‘P1’ John Surtees watch edition by Scalfaro Watch Company, offered on behalf of the Henry Surtees Foundation…
…the watch to be launched later this year to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the John Surtees’ victory in the 1964 Formula 1 World Championship, making him the only man ever to have won world championships on both two and four wheels. John Surtees OBE partnered with Scalfaro Watch Company with the aim to create a classic mechanical watch marrying history and achievement with modern technology. After two years of intensive testing, the very first prototype was approved by John Surtees and named “P1”. Having gained some “patina” following John Surtees’ travels around the globe, it is now updated and marked P1 and JS on the backside. This P1 Prototype is the original master model setting the aesthetical and technical standards for the John Surtees limited Edition of 300 watches which will be launched in 2014. The “P1” undoubtedly represents a piece of history…
PORTRAIT JOHN SURTEES OBE:
Born February 11, 1934, in Tatsfield, Surrey, John Surtees, OBE, is revered as one of Great Britain’s greatest-ever motor sportsmen. He amassed no fewer than eight World Champion titles, seven on two wheels in 350cc and 500cc motor-cycle racing and one on four wheels for Ferrari in 1964 Formula 1. He then added the inaugural Canadian-American Challenge Cup (CanAm) Championship title driving the Lola-Chevrolet T70 in 1966 that he had helped perfect, and he went on to build and race his own Surtees-Ford Formula 1 cars, winning with them twice at Oulton Park, and taking both Formula 2 and Formula 5000 titles as constructor and entrant.
Riding most prominently MV-Agusta motorcycles, during the period 1958-1960, John Surtees won 32 of 39 races and became the first man to win the Senior TT on the Isle of Man three consecutive years. The adoring Italian tifosi nicknamed him figlio del vento (son of the wind), then simply Il Grande John ‘John the Great’.
He was also a formidable endurance racing driver, combining his natural driving talent with rare mechanical understanding and sympathy. For Ferrari he won the Sebring 12-Hours plus multiple Monza and Nurburgring 1,000Kms races while also excelling for Lotus, Cooper, Lola, Cooper-Maserati and Honda before going his own way. During his remarkable racing career he won 290 of the 621 races he entered and claimed a further 103 podium finishes before his swansong appearance, in the 1972 Italian Grand Prix. Today he is one of the most respected of all surviving road racing veterans by any standards a great British racing warrior.
“A fine collector’s timepiece commemorating my career as the only World Champion on two and four wheels” John Surtees OBE