This Fascinating Sports Watch Wears Its Heart on Your Sleeve

Fans of mechanical watch engineering, this one’s for you.

People love watches for various reasons. But anyone who digs in deep finds an appreciation for the technical intricacies and for preserving a heritage craft.

Christopher Ward

The prevailing problem for fans of that craft is that the intricate engineering is tucked away inside the case, with display case backs, open hearts and skeletonized dials only offering glimpses of how mechanical watches work.

Christopher Ward

Christopher Ward has changed that by taking the metaphorical beating heart of a mechanical watch and placing it on the dial of the C12 Loco to be admired. The balance wheel, hairspring, pallet fork and escape wheel, which power the watch at a steady pace to keep reliable time, are placed on the lower half of the dial.

Christopher Ward

Achieving this required designing a completely new in-house movement, which was fitted to the sporty C12 case. However, the most impressive part is that Christopher Ward offers this luxury-tier design for under $5,000.

A peek behind the curtain

In 2022, Christopher Ward kicked in the door of the elite watch brand club with the Bel Canto. It was an unapologetic announcement that a so-called “micro-brand” is capable of luxury-tier horological design and can sell it for a profit at an approachable price.

Christopher Ward

The daring British watchmaker could have easily rested on its laurels and milked the Bel Canto with reissues and incremental updates. Instead, it designed, executed and brought to market a far more ambitious watch in the time it takes luxury brands to ideate a project.

In an astonishing feat of horological engineering, a completely new in-house movement was designed and manufactured in less than five years. It was a collaborative effort between Christopher Ward’s design team in England and an engineering team in Biel, Switzerland.

Christopher Ward

Christopher Ward’s new caliber CW-003 movement isn’t just beautiful and groundbreaking, it also offers incredible performance. The hand-wound movement, visible through the display case back, provides a 144-hour (six-day) power reserve with a consistent accuracy of -0/+7 seconds per day.

In the spirit of transparency that drove the creation of the C12 Loco, endeavoring to show watch owners the beauty behind the keeping of time, Christopher Ward documented the design and execution of its new watch in a one-hour film.

The watch’s name has a double meaning. Loco is a play on locomotion, the physical force behind how a mechanical watch works. It is also Spanish for crazy, which is how anyone outside of the company, and many within it, would describe the ambitious undertaking.

Unserious luxury

With the C12 Loco, Christopher Ward illuminates the absurdity of an increasingly stratified watch industry, where most offerings are priced under $2,000 or over $10,000, and adventurous engineering rarely costs less than $20,000.

Christopher Ward

The young brand took a chance with the Bell Canto and swiftly doubled down with the C12 Loco. Both watches offer visual and mechanical wonders that were previously deemed unattainable for a large majority of watch fans.

The C12 Loco takes it a step further by demonstrating that this level of design doesn’t have to be stuffy either. Built on the C12 foundation, this innovative movement lives in a fun and comfortable modern sports watch.

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Rather than dolling it up with precious metals to jack up the price, Christopher Ward opted for steel, rubber and a fun color palette. The dial is available in black, blue, orange and white. Each dial can be paired with a steel bracelet or a rubber strap in blue, orange, white or black, creating 20 total color combinations.

After watching Christopher Ward’s documentary about making the C12 Loco, cheekily titled Freewheelin‘, it is clear that keeping this new watch approachable and fun was just as crucial to the brand as the ground-breaking engineering.

Christopher Ward

Whether you’re a fan of Christopher Ward’s designs or not, if you love watches, you must appreciate its endeavor to level the playing field for new and affordable brands. And to “take the piss out of” luxury watchmakers, as the Brits say.

The C12 Loco is a ticket to a party that most fans have been deliberately excluded from for a long time.

Availability and pricing

The Christopher Ward C12 Loco is available for preorder now and will ship in October 2025. The initial run is limited to 750 pieces, so you should move fast if you don’t want to wait till next year to land one.

Judging by the success of the Bel Canto and the hype surrounding this follow-up, more production runs and design updates will surely follow.

For American buyers, Christopher Ward announced that a 10-percent charge will be added at checkout to cover American tariffs.

Christopher Ward

Christopher Ward C12 Loco

Specs

Case Size	41mm
Movement	CW-03 hand wound
Water Resistance	30m

• $4,595 at Christopher Ward

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