The Hawker Hurricane has a certain spare beauty to it. Built by the British, this WWII fighter was already outdated when it was launched but its spare lines and simplistic shape is iconic in the language of weaponry. AVI-8, a British watch company, has tried its hand at one-upping – or at least matching – the plane’s spare grace and handsome looks.
The AVI-8 Hawker Hurricane is a quartz piece with a clever day-of-week display consisting of multiple little dots along the middle of the dial. It is surprisingly small – the Miyota movement is inside a 38mm case – but it is bold and a splash of yellow between 9 o’clock and noon add some excitement to the design. At about $180, however, you can excuse AVI-8 the decision to make this thing a bit smaller.
I have to admit that I’ve grown to like this piece even though I would not wear it – yet. AVI-8 has a number of other pieces – including the sassy automatic Flyboy – I much prefer but this is a clever homage to a great plane. It is a tribute to Sir Douglas Bader, a “flying ace,” and features the letters “LE” in honor of his first squadron.
The build quality is solid, the looks are clean, and the NATO strap is fun and well-made. In short, it has all the things you could want in a modern military watch.
Obviously this story is a bit of window dressing for what this watch really is: a clever and nicely made quartz with a unique day-of-week window. I’m not going to say this is the watch that will win the war in my heart against quartz but it did fight some great border skirmishes on the way to the Berlin of my automatic-loving brain. With a little help and some good tailwinds, AVI-8 could finally win the battle.
Specs
COLLECTION : HAWKER HURRICANE
MODEL : AV-4044-02
MOVEMENT : Japan Quartz 3 Hands with Date and Day
CASE MATERIAL : Stainless Steel
CASE DIAMETER (mm) : 38
CASE THICKNESS (mm) : 11
CASE SHAPE : Round
CASE COLOR : Stainless Steel
DIAL COLOR : Black
BAND : Nylon Nato Strap
BAND COLOR : Multi Colour
BUCKLE : Strap Buckle
BAND WIDTH (mm) : 20
WATER RESISTANCE : 5 ATM
WATCH WEIGHT (g) : 80
WARRANTY : 2 Years International
