FEATURE: Learning to Love the CAU2012

CAU2012.BT0717

Now that I've finally had a chance to wear my new Formula One without it ripping my wrist to pieces, unsurprisingly perhaps I'm feeling a lot more positive towards it. Indeed, I've pretty much put on ice any plans to sell it or to trade it in against a Grand Carrera CV511A, which means it's going to be a while until I can get my hands on a GC. But who knows, things may change and this one isn't going to lose much money between now and the end of the year so I may give Watchfinder's trade-in service a go then if I still haven't fully accepted it into the fold.

But I hope not and I doubt it, it would be a shame to lose the most 'colourful' watch from my collection and it is still pretty cool. I definitely felt a lot better about it wearing it out to dinner on Friday night and I was surprised how much better it looked with a shirt and also that it slid under the cuff easier than I expected.

It is still quite a large watch, and for once I find myself wishing it was maybe 2mm smaller, usually I find black watches wear smaller but this one doesn't particularly seem to. Perhaps because the orange is so in your face? Funnily enough, when I look at it it really reminds me of the Chopard Mille Miglia watches, only nicer... I'm not a big fan of Chopard I have to say!

I think if anything my reservations about the watch stem from the 'Formula One' range styling and case. I kind of wish it had proper lugs, although I must admit the way the strap fits does look very neat. I guess it just doesn't look as expensive as it is, I definitely don't think it looks like a £2500 watch, but then I try and remind myself that I paid £1735, and it's definitely worth that much.

I think this is going to be an ongoing journey of discovery for a while, but at least it's starting to look less like I made a costly mistake buying this one...

You may remember I mentioned a strap I saw in Debenhams which was orange and grey and that I was considering if the BT0717 strap didn't work out. Well funnily enough I've just come across a photograph of the exact same strap fitted to a CAU2012, and as I thought it doesn't look that great, honestly.

At first glance it looks like the perfect match, but then you realise it's grey and orange, not black and suddenly it looks a bit rubbish. It's a real shame because if it was orange and black it would look amazing and I would definitely buy one. But it's not... such a shame.

Still never mind the BT0717 makes the watch wearable and that's the main thing. I still have a major problem with the lume and the excessive amount of lume on the hands, silver hands with less lume on would have looked so much better. But, what can you do? I'm not about to start butchering the thing with aftermarket hands so I'll just have to learn to live with them, or not...