DMARGE

Somewhere in Australia, a prominent Australian tech founder has decided to part with a slice of his incredible watch collection. Not all of it. Just enough to make history. The estimated total value of what he has consigned to First State Auctions is the largest single offering of Swiss luxury watches this country has ever put under the hammer. With auction estimates for references running from $4,000 to north of $500,000, split across two auctions this month.

The Cartier Crash has always looked like someone left a watch too close to a fire. When it first appeared in London in 1967, that was essentially the reaction it got. Too strange, too artistic, too far from what a serious watch was supposed to look like. Production stayed tiny through the following decades, and the Crash drifted along as a minor footnote in Cartier’s catalogue, the kind of thing specialists noticed and most collectors passed over.

Some footballers go viral for their goals. Erling Haaland is going viral because half of Instagram has apparently been hiding women who look exactly like him. Over the past few days, reels have been spreading of women with the same blonde hair, sharp jawline and unmistakable expression as Norway’s striker. One lookalike inspired another, then another, until the whole thing stopped being a coincidence and started being its own category. One reel alone has pulled more than 85 million views.

For a long time, every serious luxury car brand wanted a halo car. Not because it would sell in meaningful numbers, but because it made the rest of the range feel more desirable by association. The Audi R8, the Porsche 918 Spyder, the BMW i8 all played this role at different points, machines that most buyers would never own but that gave the brand something to point to when it wanted to signal what it was capable of. That logic is getting harder to sustain, particularly in China.

Cheap electric cars often have a problem. They look cheap. You can usually spot the base model from across a car park. Smaller wheels, sadder trim, fewer features and the quiet sense that someone ticked the sensible box and moved on. The entry version tends to exist mainly so the brand can advertise a lower starting price, not because anyone particularly wants to drive it. Cupra is trying to avoid that trap with the updated Tavascan.

There are bad days to own a Ferrari. Then there is coming home from a business trip to find out your $764,000 AUD supercar has been used as a playground. That is what happened to a Ferrari 488 GTB owner in Kunming, China, after four young boys decided the parked red supercar outside looked like something worth climbing. Surveillance footage shows the children approaching the car with bamboo poles before getting onto the bodywork, sitting on the roof and using sections of the Ferrari as a slide.

Richard Mille has made a watch that looks like it belongs on a Tour de France bike. The catch is that it probably should not go anywhere near an actual Tour de France stage. The new RM 64-01 Tourbillon Colnago is Richard Mille’s latest collaboration, built alongside legendary Italian bicycle maker Colnago and fronted by four-time Tour champion Tadej Pogačar. On paper, it is a cycling watch.

The watch auction world is not short on hype at the best of times. Every season brings another record, another rare reference, another room full of people pretending they are not emotionally attached to tiny mechanical objects that cost more than houses. But what Phillips just pulled off is harder to wave away.

Footballers used to arrive at tournaments with headphones, a wash bag and the same nervous airport tracksuit as everyone else. Erling Haaland appears to have packed an Hermès archive instead. Norway’s striker is already hard to miss at six-foot-five, scoring goals like it bores him slightly, looking like someone designed him after watching too much Viking cinema. At this World Cup he has become a talking point before the whistle even blows, and not for his pressing stats. The bags.

Some watches whisper. This one has racing stripes. TAG Heuer has revealed its new Formula 1 Automatic Chronograph x Gulf, a limited-edition piece that takes Gulf Oil’s famous blue and orange motorsport livery and runs it straight across the dial. It is not delicate. It is not shy. It is not one of those watches designed to disappear under a cuff and behave itself at dinner.