This. This watch dial is the reason I started on this particular watch build... It all began when I came across someone's build that utilised the same dial - prior to this, I did not even know of the existence of a Walter Wolf Racing branded watch or dial.

If you don't have any idea who or what Walter Wolf Racing is, here's an excerpt from Wikipedia: "Walter Wolf Racing was a Formula One constructor active from 1977 to 1979, which won the first race the team entered. It was owned and run by Canadian Walter Wolf. The team was based in Reading, UK but raced with the Canadian licence."

Okay, to be honest, I don't really know much about the team either, all I knew was that its colours look great, I've seen F1 cars with its livery online, and that there was an RG400 Walter Wolf by Suzuki. Eitherway, I decided that this would make for the perfect piece to work around to create a motorsports-inspired driving watch!

As you can see, the dial that I've gotten came from this Citizen watch, which was part of a special release of Walter Wolf Racing co-branded line of watches. And for some reason, the dial was available on eBay, and although it costs quite a pretty penny, I decided to go for it!

While I could have went with a typical NH36 movement, this was a plain dial build without any date, hence the NH36 movement with a date complication would have resulted in a 'ghost position' for the quickset date adjustment. To circumvent this issue, and for that fancy black plating, I opted for the skeletonised NH72A, and on top of that, I ordered some blued screws to dress the movement up a little (the watch's gonna have a display caseback!)

As the dial is of a smaller diameter than standard Seiko ones, I had to make it work somehow, and fill the gap on the outside. To achieve that, I decided to get a minute track meant for skeleton dial builds, and to combine it with the Citizen Walter Wolf Racing dial.

For the hands, I wanted something that would fit the instrument panel of a race car, and hence the simple red second hand that is inspired by racing tachometers.

The completed "heart" of the watch!

With the intention of it as a driving watch, I opted for a simple slim case. And by now you should have noticed the weird orientation of the dial, and the crown. You see, without a date window, I have the freedom to play around with the clocking of the dial (and the entire movement essentially). I've chose to have the crown on the left side so that it doesn't dig into my wrist (I'll be wearing the watch on my left hand), as for the dial position...

Pictured here is a driving watch from Vacheron Constantin, very expensive stuff, but hey, that isn't the point. Now, looking at this image, you can probably already understand the reason for the dial's position - it is so that the face remains upright when you are holding a steering wheel, or when you are riding a bike.

So there we have it! A 1 of 1 motorsport inspired driving watch that I built myself!

Here's a shot of the display caseback, showing off the movement in its full glory

- Zhi Xuan