Cartier "Crash" Limited Edition Watch For 2013.

The Cartier "Crash" watch for those outside of the world of vintage watch collecting, was a watch made by Cartier in the 1960's following the death in London of Cartier's vice president in a car "crash" (see clever eh?), the fellow in question was wearing a oblong Bagnoire Alongee wristwatch, and apparently a fire melted the wristwatch, quite how the watchmakers at Cartier found this out is a detail omitted from the story, presumably not romantic enough, however, suffice to say the melted and distorted wristwatch became an "inspiration" if the word can be used in this context, to create a limited edition wristwatch in 1967, then again in 1991.

Now for 2013 Cartier will be again releasing a version of the Crash, this time however, as a ladies watch, this decision is probably more to do with changing fashions, when the original was released mens wristwatches were much smaller, take the classic Rolex size which was always 34mm, 34mm is now considered a Ladies size, the original crash at 39mm is diminutive by todays standards, therefore the new Crash will be larger than the original, at 26mm x 39mm, and yet will still be considered a Ladies timepiece.  Additionally the watch will have a mechanical hand-wound movement, no information is given on the type of movement as yet.

The 2013 collection will be released in four versions, all of which are solid gold, and all of which are diamond encrusted, either a diamond bezel, of bezel and pave strap, and there will be 267 pieces of the diamond bezel watch in yellow gold and 267 in white gold, and there will be 67 pieces in yellow gold with a pave strap, and 67 in white gold.  Notice the use of the number "67"?  As in the original year of the watches release?

There is no pricing information available at present, however we can take an educated guess, probably around £20,000 for the diamond bezel model, and around £70,000 for the pave strap model.