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The special Concorso edition of the LANGE 1 TIME ZONE is heir to a remarkable tradition.

This timepiece seems to feel exceptionally at ease in the company of precious automotive icons. It certainly cuts a good figure both at the wheel of a 100-year-old Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Austrian Alpine Trials Car and in a present-day BMW i8. There's something that the time-zone watch with the prominent outsize date does not reveal at first sight: it is heir to a tradition that dates farther back than the history of the automobile.

When Bertha Benz set out for a first ride in the countryside with three-wheeled Patent Motorcar No. 3 in 1888 to dispel the concerns of potential customers with regard to the new technology, A. Lange & Söhne was already a famous international watch brand. And when the Rolls-Royce pictured here was delivered, Lange had already been granted more than 40 patents; the company's customers included observatories, polar expedition leaders, kings, and emperors.

This heritage and a passion for technology, style, and elegance come alive to those who wear a Lange watch on their wrists today – also when it is presented as a prize for the most attractive automobile at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. Or, when a photogra¬pher places it on the dashboard of a vehicle whose history is as exciting as that of the A. Lange & Söhne brand.

About A. Lange & Söhne
When Ferdinand A. Lange, a Dresden watchmaker, established his watch manufactory in 1845, he laid the cornerstone of Saxony’s precision watchmaking. His precious pocket watches remain highly coveted among collectors all over the world. The company was expropriated after World War II, and the name A. Lange & Söhne nearly fell into oblivion. In 1990, Ferdinand A. Lange’s great-grandson Walter Lange had the courage to relaunch the brand. Today, Lange crafts only a few thousand wristwatches in gold or platinum per year. They are endowed exclusively with proprietary move¬ments that are lavishly decorated and assembled by hand. In a period of little more than 20 years, A. Lange & Söhne developed over 40 manufacture calibres and secured a top-tier position among the world’s finest watch brands. Its greatest successes include innovative time-keeping instruments such as the LANGE 1 with the first outsize date in a series produced wristwatch as well as the LANGE ZEITWERK with its supremely legible, precisely jumping numerals. Meanwhile, both models have become icons of a brand rich in tradition.



Original Language: English