Quiet British Performance from the Fears Brunswick Perpetual Calendar and Bentley Continental GT S
Pairing watches with cars can so often be reduced to the familiar tropes of dials inspired by speedometers, rally-style leather straps and the straight-up crime of slapping a car badge on a crown, face or caseback.
But what happens when the pairing occurs serendipitously, and turns out to be almost perfect? That’s essentially what we have here. Just as Bristol-based watchmaker Fears let us know of its upcoming Brunswick 39 Perpetual Calendar, an email from Bentley asked if we had any upcoming journeys with which they could assist. Several emails, an NDA and an insurance waiver later, and there’s a Bentley Continental GT S on my drive, and the Fears on my wrist.
First, the watch. This is a significant moment for the Bristol-based watchmaker. Head to their website and you’ll see how the current Brunswick collection sits in the £2,500 to £3,700 ballpark, yet this new Brunswick Perpetual Calendar commands an order of magnitude more, at £26,950. Yet this isn’t a one-off or limited to a manufacturing run counted on one hand. It’s a new member of the core Brunswick range, and marks 10 years since the Fears brand was revived by its founder’s great-great-great-grandson.
There’s a new case architecture that makes it the slimmest Brunswick yet, and the first Fears to carry a moonphase complication. It’s also the first high complication to come from Fears in 180 years, with the perpetual calendar movement showing minutes, hours, day, date, month and year within the leap year cycle – all without requiring adjustment until the year 2100.
Although not a ground-up movement, the watch is powered by a modified Dubois Déprax perpetual calendar module, atop the familiar Sellita SW300. The resulting movement has its own calibre reference of 55113, exclusive to Fears. Details include frosted bridges and plates, hand anglage – or bevelling – applied to the bridge’s edges with a dark rhodium finish. Automatic winding is provided by a custom, solid 18ct gold rotor, visible through the exhibition case back and featuring the watchmaker’s ‘Bristol Flower’ motif.
It’s a watch that makes a bold move upmarket for Fears and the Brunswick collection, but delivered with a great deal of restraint. Despite its technological prowess, this isn’t a watch that shouts from your wrist.
And so to the Bentley. This S model is the latest addition to the Continental GT family. Yes, I’d also failed to realise how this family has grown to five now, each version subtly tweaking the standard car to enhance either its comfort or performance.
The Azure majors on comfort and passenger wellbeing, while the Mulliner is the “luxurious pinnacle”, Bentley says. Going in the other direction, the Speed is the most powerful variant and the GT S driven here sits between that and the base model. The S doesn’t get the same power as the Speed, but does gain its clever chassis setup, with 48-volt active anti-roll bars that are almost spookily good at keeping the big Bentley’s 2,459 kilograms in check while cornering.
The S also gets a sports exhaust as standard, but Bentley’s press garage turned this aspect up to 11 and instead fitted the £10,200 optional titanium system by Akrapovic. Hybrid running silently in EV mode? Check. Twin-turbocharged V8 that bellows, cracks and growls like a race car? Also check.
But despite the performance – zero to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds – and the histrionics uncorked by Sport mode, the Continental GT S impresses most with its restraint. Just as the Fears can keep its calendar accurate until 2100, yet appear perfectly modest, the Bentley will give supercars a run for their money, yet also waft along in supreme comfort, its S credentials gliding below most onlookers’ radar.
Yes, the GT S likes to shout when given the opportunity – not least through that titanium sports exhaust – but it also knows when to hold back. Just as the Brunswick hides the unfathomably complicated workings of its perpetual calendar movement behind a simple dial that doesn’t even have a running seconds hand, Bentley’s rotating dashboard obscures the GT S’s infotainment touchscreen when not required.
Press a button marked ‘Screen’ and the dashboard rotates like James Bond’s numberplates, tucking the tech away and replacing it with a trio of beautiful dials. Now, instead of Apple CarPlay or a settings menu, the Bentley’s driver is presented with a compass, chronometer and outside thermometer. It’s a stunning piece of engineering, comprising 40 moving parts – including two separate motors and gearboxes – spinning to a tolerance of +/-0.3mm, and built to work in any climate; small wonder it adds £5,320 to the list price.
There’s a longer-term benefit too. Decades from now, when today’s touchscreen looks hopelessly dated on the concours lawns of Pebble Beach and Villa d’Este, the Bentley can simply rotate it out of sight. The Fears on its owner’s wrist, meanwhile, will still know exactly what day it is.
Zoom out, and a sense of power veiled by modesty continues with the Bentley’s hybrid system. This is a 671 horsepower beast with a 191 mph top speed, but it’s also a hybrid that starts in silence and can manage up to 52 miles with the engine switched off. Plug it in at night, refill that range for a couple of pounds, and commute in silence – all while not disturbing the neighbours, who might even think you’ve bought an EV, if it weren’t for those titanium tailpipes.
Similarly, the Brunswick doesn’t draw too much attention to its abilities. The case diameter is modest enough, at 39mm, but it’s the thickness – a svelte 9.4mm – that impresses most of all. In the hand it feels remarkably compact and on the wrist it sits comfortably, and that’ll only improve over time as the ostrich strap relaxes and softens.
Strap on the Fears, step into the Bentley, and the two work wonderfully together. Both are seriously expensive, but neither relies on price alone to make its point. Crucially, the watch suits the Continental’s cabin without even a hint of trying to be a ‘car watch’. Instead of the excruciatingly obvious Breitling, a lesser-spotted Fears on the wrist of a Bentley driver could even suggest a little extra depth to their character. Something to bring up at dinner, certainly.
Imagine the owner of these two items. They admire British luxury like many of their peers, but spend their money in a less predictable way. They’ve gone for the GT S because they want the poise and body control of the GT Speed, but recognise that the base car has more than enough power. Their money is better spent on making a GT S their own with that exhaust and some goodies from the Mulliner department, instead of blowing it all on the extra oomph of the top-performance model. As for the watch, perhaps they already knew of Fears and leapt at the opportunity to buy into the firm’s move upmarket, instead of spending £27,000 on something predictably Swiss.
Both the Fears and the Bentley come from an area of British luxury that speaks quietly. There’s an if-you-know-you-know quality to them too, especially with the Brunswick; a possession chosen carefully, and likely to only solicit an appreciative nod from a particularly clued-up enthusiast. That isn’t quite the case for this exact Bentley, but spec it tastefully – the configurator is capable of producing 46 billion combinations – and the GT S plays perfectly to the brute-in-a-suit cliché.
Show some discipline with the paint and leather, and it’s their approach to modesty that makes this watch and car surprisingly convincing companions.
That’s ultimately why this car-watch pairing works better than most. Not because either party has been especially smart in how the two are tied together, but because there was no tie in the first place. No Bentley badge on the caseback, no Fears logo on the dashboard clock. They just happen to be two very British products that approach luxury in the same way – by producing enormous complexity at considerable expense, but with enough restraint to keep most of it hidden.