Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix – 26290IO.OO.A001VE.01

High-tech, high-spec sports watches have been associated with F1 racing since (roughly) the 1960s. Ayrton Senna famously wore TAG Heuer . Legendary bad boy James Hunt had a pair of TAGs named after him. But perhaps the most enticing association between luxury watches and F1, certainly for collectors, is away from the track. Where big brands design and release limited-edition race pieces: luxury watches that have associations with tracks and F1 years, rather than with drivers or racing teams.
F1 watches are more bespoke than driver-themed watches, and often go on sale only at the race in question. Roll up to the Audemars Piguet hospitality tent on race day, and you're likely to get the chance to buy a luxury watch designed only for that day. For fans of the Royal Oak Offshore (and racing, of course), this represents a golden opportunity to get hands on something your average AP lover won't ever get to see. And watch collectors, like all collectors, love their limited editions.
Doing this, of course, cuts out a significant market segment: the F1 fans who weren't at that race, on that day. So, if you're a savvy luxury watch brand, you look for ways to enthuse the other petrol-heads in your fanbase.
In 2010, AP took a new approach to the F1 watch, releasing a family of Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix watches in limited-edition runs, but for general sale rather than hospitality-only. Now, you could fuse your love of the Audemars Piguet brand, the sport of motor racing, and limited-edition collector's timepieces, without having to show up at the track.
This article refers to Audemars Piguet ref 26290IO.OO.A001VE.01, which is a forged carbon and titanium Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix with a red dial. Alternative versions included a platinum model, and a pink gold version. Dial colours and strap colours varied with each model. Ref 26290IO.OO.A001VE.01 came on a calfskin strap, black on the outside and interior but with a scarlet material running through the middle. The AP buckle was done in titanium, and the rotor (visible through the sapphire caseback) was in blackened gold.
All of these materials look as impressive as they sound: but it's the forged carbon that sets the Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix apart from the other competitors in the F1 luxury watch race. Audemars Piguet spent a heck of a long time getting their in-house carbon forging just right, and the result was—and is—spectacular. Subtly camo-patterned, ultra-hard, and smooth to the touch, AP's forged carbon case (44 mm) is also light. Like a race-car. And streamlined. Like a race-car. This isn't so much a homage to F1 as a wristwatch embodiment of the machines at the heart of the sport.
The dial, which includes a tachymeter on the gold-coloured interior bezel, is about as petrol-headed as you can get. The 30-minute counter (at 9 o'clock) is detailed with a yellow zone for the first 10 minutes, like the over-rev section of an rpm dial. The small seconds is marked out like a speedo, and the 12-hour counter looks like a steering wheel. Plus, of course, there's that lovely strap, which looks and feels like the trim in a supercar—not an F1 car, perhaps, in which luxury is nonexistent, but certainly the kind of vehicle you'd expect Eddie Jordan to drive home at the end of a hard day on the pundit circuit.
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix is waterproof to 100 m. Hour indexes and hour/minute hands are lumed. The titanium and forged carbon model was originally released in a limited edition of 1,750 pieces. The model is now discontinued.
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