This year for Watches and Wonders 2024, Cartier has literally asked “Why not?” In adding a few new models to the Santos-Dumont line, they’ve followed “in the magical and unprecedented footsteps of Albert Santos-Dumont” for whom anything was possible, so the brand says. In dreaming up a watch to fit that sky-is-the-limit constraint, the never-miss wizards at Cartier dreamed up the new Cartier Santos-Dumont Rewind, with which it introduces three new iterations of the standard Santos-Dumont with lacquered cases.
The Cartier Santos-Dumont Rewind responds to a request that I assume absolutely no one was making: Please make a watch where the time runs backward. So that’s what Cartier has done. The platinum Santos-Dumont Rewind has the same wearable dimensions as the normal “large” models with a 31.5mm diameter, 43.5mm lug-to-lug, and a 7.3mm thickness. It has a sapphire crystal, a ruby cabochon crown, and is paired with an alligator strap with a platinum pin buckle. The dial is made from a carnelian, a semi-precious red stone, with rhodium-plated Roman numerals and hands (which the brand describes as apple-shaped). The numerals, you’ll notice, are reversed, and the hands rotate in reverse. That’s the entire trick. Smacks a bit of Timex’s 25-hour dial from a few years ago and certainly isn’t the showstopper that last year’s Santos-Dumont was with its plane rotor.
The three new Cartier Santos-Dumont models are certainly more traditional, and depending on your thoughts about carnelian, potentially more attractive. The case’s dimensions are identical to the Rewind, and the watches are similarly paired with color-coordinated fitted straps. The watches expand on the existing lacquer-accented models and are offered in platinum, rose gold and yellow gold, with lacquer on the case and bezel in olive green, taupe grey, and peacock blue, respectively. The lacquer is less than 1/1000th of a millimeter and polished by hand. The dials are all in the same color as the enamel, with radiant sunburst finishing and applied Arabic numerals matching the case metal. The hands for these models revert back to the typical Cartier sword style.
All four models presented are powered by Cartier’s manual winding movements. In the case of the Santos-Dumont Rewind, the brand has inverted the gearing on a 230 MC, while the other three operate with the Cartier 430 MC. Both movements appear to run at 21,600 vph and deliver a 38-hour power reserve.
Aesthetically, these are all lovely-looking watches, but the Rewind seems to fail to strike the balance between quirky and functional in the same way that, say, the Cartier Coussin models did. The lacquer cases, though, are right up my alley and quite appealing as additions to the Santos-Dumont line. The Cartier Santos-Dumont Rewind (Ref. WGSA0102) is limited to 200 pieces and priced at $38,400 USD, while the Cartier Santos-Dumont Cartier in platinum (WGSA0096) is limited to 200 pieces and priced at $21,900 USD, and pricing the rose gold (WGSA0098) and yellow gold (WGSA0097) is set at $15,600 USD. For more information, please visit the Cartier website.