Grand Prix

The Grand Prix joined the Vulcain catalogue in the 1960s, but the name looks back more than three decades: it celebrates the award won by the brand at the Barcelona International Exposition, opened by King Alfonso XIII and held between May 1929 and January 1930, at which no fewer than 655 of the 1,175 awards given were Grand Prix. Reviving that name for a model launched in the 1960s was Vulcain's way of publicly claiming a technical pedigree that by then lay far in the past, in a decade when the brand was already firmly identified with the Cricket and its mechanical alarms.

Unlike the Cricket, the original Grand Prix was a more classic, understated watch, aimed at people looking for everyday elegance without the alarm complication: clean lines, a legible dial and a look in keeping with the widespread language of mid-range Swiss watchmaking of the time, closer to dress codes than to sporty or instrument-like ones.

For decades the model remained one of the least discussed references in Vulcain's historic catalogue, until a recent reissue brought it back into production with a 39 mm polished and satin-finished steel case, a Landeron L24 automatic movement and sunray dials in three colours — champagne, light grey and black — keeping the reference to the Barcelona award at the narrative heart of the line.