I guess it's my age, but up until now I was completely unaware of 'High Snobiety', and to be honest even after perusing their Instagram account for several minutes I couldn't quite decide whether the whole thing was a massive piss-take or not. It seems not, though I still can't quite be 100% certain. Not a great starting point for a collaboration between them, RUF, Bamford and TAG Heuer (though I'm not sure how much part TAG Heuer actually played in this one).
RUF is an exclusive specialty car manufacturer celebrated for its meticulously engineered production cars, again I don't really know a lot about them so to quote Wikipedia:
The company manufactures vehicles using unmarked Porsche chassis, specifically known as bodies in white. These vehicles are built from the ground up as completely new cars, using bare chassis, and assembled using Ruf-made parts and materials (e.g. BTR, CTR2, RT12), instead of badge engineering or disassembly of existing cars. This means the brand is officially recognized as a manufacturer by the German government. As such, all Ruf models have certified Ruf VIN and serial numbers, and are recognized as production models, rather than modified Porsches.
Ruf is historically known for its record breaking 211 mph CTR, and is the largest, most renowned company to make Porsche performance enhancements. Though primarily a manufacturer, Ruf has also made a name for itself operating as a car tuner, a specialist in customer-requested Porsche-to-Ruf conversions (e.g. Turbo R conversions), and a restorer of classic Porsche and Ruf models. Ruf carries out service and crash repair, as well.
As for Bamford, well George is a massive TAG Heuer enthusiast which of course is fantastic, but he is capable of producing the most gorgeous watches and some absolute howlers, and this, I'm afraid falls into the latter camp for me.
In fact I'm honestly struggling to find anything positive to say about it at all. The green colour is rank and combined with that yellow, it just looks dreadful. It looks cheap in fact, but this is not a cheap watch, not a cheap watch at all. Limited to 100 pieces, this one costs £6500, which is about £6000 more than it looks like it should cost. Really this looks more akin to a quartz Dan Henry than a Heuer 02 TAG Heuer.
Really the only thing of note here is that this is the first time (correct me if I'm wrong) we've seen a Heuer 02 modified to a bi-compax display. I wonder if this is a pre-cursor of what TAG Heuer are bringing for the 60th Anniversary of the Carrera next year?
Thankfully this one isn't considered 'cannon' so it is not eligible for the COCO Watch of the Year award, a damned good thing because by all accounts the Council is rather keen on this one. Jesus...
Well since it seems like I'm the odd one out here, I'll add the link below to the pre-order page... as of the time of writing it seems like they are still available, but... you know, why anyone would consider this when the stunning blue/white Carrera 160 Dato45 is still available I will never know...
The H02 has been two register befo, they did it with the Hoedinke Autavia IIRC
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