Rare Vintage Collabs: 1970s Nepro x Jaguar XJS & Bertone Lancia Stratos x Buler LED Watches
By Mitch Greenblatt
Sure, you can find hundreds of car & watch collaborations over the decades but here are a few of my personal vintage favorites. Both from long defunct watch brands, Nepro and Buler, and both featuring the cutting edge digital technology of the decade, LED or light-emitting diodes.
I can only assume Nepro was quick to notice the changing contours of the newest Jaguar XJ-S design or were possibly approached by the car manufacturer themselves... Either way it happened, they seamlessly blended the new tech with the space-age aesthetic into a very cool & rare collectible.
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"Guccio Bertone is best known as the designer of cars. As a creator of the Lamborghini Miura, Espada, Marzal and Countach, of the Ferrari Dino 308 GT4, Maserati Quattroporte II and Khamsin, the Fiat X1/9 and Spider, the Volvo 262 Coupé and 780, The Volkswagen Polo, the BMW 3200 CS, the Citroen XM and BX and approximately 35 other cars and 60 prototypes, Bertone has certainly earned his fame. In addition, he also designed a number of interesting wrist watches." -Via "Watch - History of Modern Wristwatch" by Pieter Doensen, which I highly recommend finding the out-of-print issues on eBay or elsewhere.
"1975: A range of about 15 LED and LCD quartz watches is designed for Buler Watch Ltd Lengnau, Switzerland. The name of the series is 'Stratos', matching the name of the Lancia Sports car prototype 'Lancia Stratos 1.6 HF', which is also designed by Bertone in 1970." -Via the Doensen book
(Pictures: EuropaStar, The LED Watch, Google Image Search)
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