WATCH REVIEW Bell & Ross BR 01-92 Radar

Foreword

The main feature of the BR 01-92 series – at the very heart of the Bell & Ross line of products for five years now – is an almost perfect similarity with the flight instruments used in the aviation industry.

Inspired by a simple assessment – plane cockpits instruments come with the best known legibility, Bell & Ross designers have taken over the aeronautical instrument panels’ major aesthetic features, in order to design watches with a unique legibility factor.

A 500 units limited series, the BR 01-92 Radar therefore represents a major break with the brand’s initial positioning: in fact, there are no hands nor oversized indexes on this pilot’s inspired watch.
Time indication is here replaced by three concentric discs, directly inspired by a radar’s aesthetics.

A very successfully designed concept watch

It is understandable to be inspired by flight instruments designed for telling time.
Yet it’s altogether something different to be inspired by flight instruments not related to time indication, while designing a watch!

Legitimacy is lost on the way of gaining originality and concept assets…
Actually, this proves out to be a beautiful strike of genius from Bell & Ross, blowing hot and cold for the brand’s fans’ biggest enjoyment.

This Radar thus changes all cultural time-reading codes we’re normally used to.

Because of the movement’s manufacturing (hours hand below, minutes hand in the middle, and seconds hand above), the hours’ disc, in red, is the most external one on the dial, the seconds’ one, in green, being at the centre.

This goes at the exact opposite of the conventional reading of the time with the hours’ hand being the shortest and the seconds’ one the longest…

Therefore, the reading of the time is not really clear at first… But one gets used to it rather quickly!

The only drawback regarding legibility actually comes from the graduated ‘target’ and the indexes placed on the sapphire glass.

Their black color prevents them of providing an efficient contrast above the black-colored disks.
On the other hand, any other color for the graduations, or the disks, would have clashed with this Radar’s consistency and harmonious design.
The main relevance of this watch is its originality, not its practicality!

A beautiful achievement in manufacturing

The manufacturing of this watch is identical to the traditional BR 01, with the now famous, bulking, black-PVD coated square 46 mm case.

As always with Bell & Ross, the manufacturing is good, especially with a very successful alternation of polished and brushed surfaces.

Visually, this big black dial solely marked with color segments is quite surprising.

You’ll feel you’ve become a real Alien hunter wearing a real miniature radar.

The ETA 2892 movement (from which the BR 01-92 has been named after) is a basic but reliable calibre. A rather logical choice for a ‘military’ and industrial-oriented watch.

Wrist comfort of the somewhat rigid, and very loose, rubber strap is not optimal.

Fortunately, Bell & Ross came up with the great idea of also supplying an additional nylon strap providing optimum comfort.