We were sitting just off the edge of a cliff that stuck out over the Baia de Setubal having lunch in what was normally a surfer hangout. We questioned the financial intelligence of a surf shack so far above the rolling seas below and linked only by a rutted rocky pass. Our hosts smiled, and said yes, well they were the rich type of surfers and they all had big SUVs anyway. So we all fit right in, visually if not financially, as we drove up with around twenty brand new Porsche Cayennes.Calibre was in Portugal to try out the new Cayenne GTS, the latest variant of the Porsche four by four that has spent its life annoying the purists. Many enthusiasts, ourselves included, have questioned the world in which Porsche needs to make a truck. But the Stuttgart bosses had made their decision, and put on the market a model line that has now become the source of at least one third of all of Porsche’s sales.

BALL WATCHES TAKE TO THE SKY. When Webb C. Ball set about to create a standard measure of timekeeping for the railroad industry that stretched across the American continent, manned flight was still more than a decade away. In 1891, Ball had just been appointed as chief inspector for Lake Shore Lines and in the aftermath of the Kipton train wreck, a devastating train collision that rocked the railroad community and highlighted the need for greater accuracy in timing. Webster Clay Ball began to implement sweeping reforms in the way time was kept by men who worked up and down the train tracks and he was able to devise a uniform and highly accurate means of time telling which eventually became the industry Standard. One important factor that weighed heavily in favor of the successful adaptation of this Standard was the strict requirement that Ball issued to all watch manufacturers that supplied timepieces used by all of his railroad workers.

BUSINESS MONTRES, the watch industry newsletter, has released the results of their poll on the leaders of the watch industry. Editor Gregory Pons has collated the thoughts of 75 key journalists from 22 different countries who gave their opinions on the best bosses in the watch field.Business Montres is published in French.

Should the future of human civilization turn out to be flying among the stars and colonizing outer space, this could be the watch accompanying mankind on its journey. Man has always been driven by the desire to explore the unknown. From the darkest, pressurefilled depths of ocean trenches, to the chilling altitudes of the highest mountain peaks, from the blistering heat of the widest deserts, to the frigid cold of desolate arctic wastelands, there are few places that adventurous spirits have dared not to go. We followed their exploits. We read about them and we watched them. And long before man had exhausted all the exploration possibilities this planet had to offer, he had already turned his sights to the stars. Throughout all these adventures and explorations, man’s companion had always been his wristwatch. Not just any ordinary wristwatch, but one specially crafted and designed to withstand the extremes of heat, cold, or atmospheric pressure.

Perrelet brings us two new items for their classic men’s collection. But that’s not all we have to be thankful for. The story of the man that invented the automatic watch.History is a funny thing. No one can deny its impact on today’s life, and yet, no one can point to it and say, there. There is history. History is collective memory, and just as individual memory can play tricks on you, collective memory can be not only subjective but actually entirely fabricated. How many memories do you have from your childhood that are actually memories formed from being told a story over and over by your parents? The story becomes the memory in your mind, becomes your memory of the event itself. And whether it’s true or not – how can you tell? How can you ever know? Who do you ask? This isn’t The Truman Show. There are no recorded copies of your life on file, no video vault to which you might refer.

We enter a small shop on Jermyn Street, and we can’t leave … Jones’s ‘New Portable Orrery’ English, 1794 Signed ‘Designed for the New Portable Orreries by W. Jones and made & sold by W. & S. Jones, 30 Holborn, London’. ‘A table of the principal affections of the Planets. January 1st 1794. Published as the Act directs by W & S Jones’. The base is supported on three wooden turned legs and mounted with Jones’s printed and hand coloured paper calendrical ring, with twelve fine illustrations of the Zodiacal, compass and degree scale and the Saturn and Jupiter Satellites, a lacquered brass structure comprising of the two planets Mercury and Venus and an earth globe with its moon. The mechanism is operated by means of a handle. It shows the position of the Moon and the Earth in relation to the sun, and the position of the Earth in the Zodiac.

As they did at the 2007 Baselworld show, Hysek has once again managed to come up with a piece that was a certified hit at the 2008 annual gathering.  In fact, long after the lights went out and the doors to Baselworld ’08 were closed, visitors and the press were still raving about the manufacture’s centerpiece, the mind-boggling Colosso, a minute repeater GMT that again displays the technical competence of Hysek SA when it comes to creating extremely complicated mechanisms. Though a great deal of time was consumed on the watch case’s finishing and detailing, it is the mechanical complication that is amazing; that and the three dimensional 12mm replica of the Earth that seems suspended from the 12 o’clock position. This is no static representation of the planet, as it rotates on a 24-hour period and can be set to do so either at the local time or Greenwich Mean Time.

Three hundred might not sound like that much in street terms, but we were in a full on race car in which what made that power was the heaviest thing it had to propel. The tubular chassis of this Solution F Touring Cup racecar was meant to keep rigidity to a maximum and weight to its barest possible minimum. Also, there were no nods to comfort and convenience here. No sound deadening material, no comfy padding of seat or shell. So yeah, it was justifiably jarring especially when we pitched into the curves while only making a fleeting acquaintance with the brake pedal.I began in the passenger seat, with the pilot’s seat being occupied by Philippe Charriol. For those who know only his brand, he is a popular watchmaker and designer. For those who have met him before, in person or in the pages of Calibre, he is a hard core car guy. This is his racecar, and he is shaking it down and getting some serious seat time in preparation for his assault on his latest motorsports campaign.