#Breitling speeds ahead with classic car-themed watches

Who wouldn’t want a wrist that goes from zero to 60 in four seconds? Imagine a watch not only worthy of celebrating the fastest, sleekest, most iconic muscle cars that have ever skrrrted down America’s streets — but embodying them.

Well, the Swiss tinkerers over at granddaddy watchmaker Breitling SA read your mind, and are now rolling out a troika of chronographs, geared to pay homage to the Big Three of the ’60s: the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Mustang and the Shelby Cobra.

Back then, while America — with her proxy wars, civil unrest, etc. — wasn’t exactly perfect, her cars were. And Breitling’s new Top Time Classic Car capsule (its latest spin on a vanguard watch first released in the 1960s) offers avatars as seductive and richly unconventional as the whips they incarnate.

The red-faced “Corvette” timepiece, for example, is based on Chevy’s C2 model, a low-profile car so slinky and fierce it was dubbed “Sting Ray.” Louis-Joseph Chevrolet, co-founder of the company, was himself a Swiss car racer and son of a watchmaker, so things have come full circle. Literally. The wrist-driven version of his baby has a calfskin leather strap and folding clasp with the famed crossed fleur-de-lis and checkered flags sigil.

Meanwhile, the ’Stang was for the cool cats. A half-century before folks like Nelly and Kelly Clarkson were busy flossing their equine-christened Fords, Steve McQueen was burning serious rubber with one all over the hilly streets of San Francisco in 1968’s “Bullitt,” while Jim Morrison was just trying to find his after crashing it into a telephone pole and then abandoning it to go party in LA. Allegedly. Oh, the fun trouble you’ll be able to get into with your very own green-faced “Mustang” watch (stallion logo and all) with a brown racingthemed calfskin strap and folding clasp.

Last but not least, the “Shelby Cobra” model greets you in blue with white flourishes, a nod to the car’s trademark racing colors. The Cobra was created by American racer and 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Carroll Shelby, who merged British chassis design with Yankee ingenuity (i.e., a badass engine). By rocking this kindred chronograph, you’ll be merging Swiss-grade timekeeping with serpentine style.

Start your engines.