A “Coach Built” Timepiece: The Chopard Zagato Lab One Concept

Since you’re reading this on the Watchonista website, I can safely assume you are already pretty familiar with luxury watchmaker Chopard. That said, you are probably not overly familiar with what exactly Milan-based Zagato is (unless you are also something of a serious car lover, too).

In the early days of performance car making (especially in Italy), auto companies would build the engine, chassis, frame, axels and so forth, then commission a “coach builder” to create the body of the model (sometimes working with two or three outside builders to create some variety in the final executions).

Along the lines of working with a superb tailor, the auto company/coach builder relationship has always functioned best as a close partnership (which, in the modern day, has only grown closer, with a more full-service flavor). This is because the “coach body” not only needs to fit the underpinnings perfectly, but it also has to reflect the intent and spirit of the mechanics while bringing the coach builder’s own artful aesthetics into the mix.

With Chopard’s existing fervor for the car world, most notably its popular, car-fan-favorite Mille Miglia (as well as co-president Karl Friedrich Scheufele’s reported fandom of vintage Bentley motorcars), it should surprise no one that some extra “connective” thought and care have been put into the new Chopard Zagato Lab One Concept timepiece.

All too often, watch/automotive collaborations seem to be purely co-marketing plays. Cross-branding alone can only get you so far, and many of these tend to fizzle out over time. The Chopard team worked very closely with Zagato President Andrea Michele Zagato and chief designer Norihiko Harada, going “into the lab” in a sense of truer collaboration for this timepiece.
 

Furthermore, the more “spiritual” nature of the collaboration drives the project further down the track than previous partnerships between the two: 2013’s Mille Miglia Zagato Chronograph and 2019’s Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph Zagato 100th Anniversary Edition.

“The third opus of our collaboration with Zagato represents the shared values of our family businesses: bold design in the service of technical performance, a perpetual quest for precision, and a passion for motor racing,” commented Karl-Friedrich Scheufele about the debut.

The 42mm wristwatch is not a Mille Miglia riff, nor is it even a chronograph, and it doesn’t particularly resemble a car or an engine much, but the points of “cross-pollination” between the partners are abundant and inspired.

Its total weight of 43.2 grams makes it the lightest titanium watch Chopard has ever created. Furthermore, by using the even lighter “ceramicized” titanium, the construction mirrors the “lightness of being Zagato” and recalls the design firm’s early championing of then-controversial lightweight materials like aluminum.
 

The alluring, angled tubular construction of the outer dial, which suspends the main dial surface, could be taken directly from vintage photographs of the underside of Zagato car bodies. Again, reducing weight while maintaining rigidity with a tubular substructure is a big part of the coach maker’s DNA. Along with the very open “loop” of the case lugs, this approach screams automotive structural influence-a-go-go.

However, the first-for-Chopard dial suspension approach also pays off in better distribution of mechanical stress in the case of impacts, and the “loop” lugs feature an adjustable, 45-degree pivoting system to ensure perfect wrist fit (um, like a racetrack pit carjack, anyone?).

Chopard designers were more than up to the challenge of pairing the exquisitely finished manual-wind L.U.C 04-04L movement, with bridges and plates also crafted in ceramicized titanium, with the Chopard Zagato Lab One Concept’s inventive, disruptive case design. The tourbillon-sporting movement is COSC-certified and provides 60 hours of power reserve in the tank.

To steal another automotive term, the time-telling real estate of the wristwatch presents as a kind of vertical “center stack” console. The angular-bridged 60-second tourbillon, inspired by the ongoing development of the maison’s Engine One calibre, anchors the design at 6 o’clock. The collaborators refreshingly eschewed the facile temptation to turn it into a steering wheel, instead hewing to the classic, clean drama provided by the gravity-fighting complication. An integrated small seconds counter rides on top.
 

Elegant frame-style open-work hands are next up the stack, and do a lovely job of speaking to automotive structure without overdoing it. Some movement visibility caps the central hands before we reach the fuel-gauge-style power reserve indicator, which is really the Chopard Zagato Lab One Concepts’ only direct automotive reference.

This approach, along with dial sides that might remind you of fine “Z” patterned leather-detailing on a Zagato interior (which carries Chopard badging on one side and Zagato badging balancing the other side) succeeds because it is particularly restrained, indirect, and takes full advantage of the box-style crystal’s visibility (as does the transparent caseback).
 

Strap options – again, don’t expect “tire treads” or even rubber – include a hefty black technical fabric choice or classic calfskin leather.

Be forewarned: The word “concept” is used in both the automotive and horological worlds and usually indicates limitations. “Concept” cars are typically exhibited at car shows and rarely enter full production. This “concept” watch, first explored as a potential “conceptualization” in 2020, is now available in only 19 pieces. Pricing for the Zagato Lab One Concept is officially “on request,” but we’ve seen price tags reporting around CHF 130,000. Your mileage may vary, but a pit stop at the Chopard website can tell you more.