Huckberry x Timex "Cola" Sport Watch - Limited Edition
Hi, this is Alan. Thanks for reading, and for your interest in these reviews. My contact info is at the bottom. Here is a really nice watch, released October 2020 by Timex in collaboration with Huckberry, a company selling a wide variety of gear to help people fulfill their adventure goals. Here is their mission statement: "We Exist to Inspire and Equip Adventures Near and Far." This is the second Timex Huckberry watch, and is called "Cola."
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The watch is not a reissue or homage to any original design, but rather draws on vintage design elements from the 1970s and 1980s to create a new design, modern, but with vintage vibes. "Starting with a blank canvas, we worked with the legendary watchmaker to create our very own design."
That canvas is painted on a "background frame" of the 2019 Q Timex Reissue, a highly celebrated release that re-created a 1979 diver-style sports watch. They share the same case, movement, and bracelet, but then the designs begin to diverge, as we'll see.
Why is this watch called COLA?
You can see that the background of the watch is black, with red "cross hairs," sectioning the dial into quadrants. Where the Q Timex Reissue had luminous circles applied to the dial at the hours, Cola has white marks at most hours, but polished and beveled steel markers at 6, 9, and 12.
At the periphery of the dial is an inner ring in red, and an outer ring in white, each with hash markings each minute. Day/date window and the hands are all similar to the Q. Hands are luminous, but no dial elements are luminous.
The rotating, aluminum bezel is really attractive, and carries a lot of the appeal of this watch. Unlike the Q Timex Reissue, where the numbers on the bezel are hours 1-12 like a GMT, this is a minutes-based bezel, with the first 20 minutes in red. This asymmetry creates a playful appearance.
The bezel is particularly nice. The red and the black, with the cut off between the 2 and the 0 of 20 minutes is sharp. I also really like the type style for the numbers. I'm not sure, but I think it may be from as far back as 1970s, maybe even earlier.
This pic also nicely shows the red and white outer tracks, a great feature of this design.
In the sunlight.
So, why COLA? I mean, well, just look at it! But I'll let Huckberry explain: "Some of the most desirable and instantly-recognizable watches of the last five decades have achieved that status through a simple, elemental detail: their innovative color codes. Generations of watches—Rolex, Omega and Seiko among them—have taken on nicknames like 'root beer,' 'blueberry,' or 'banana, along with plenty of other food-inspired endearments. These names refer to the richly-colored dials and anodized rotating bezels found on a wide variety of dive and pilot watches....In that spirit, we present the Huckberry Cola Sport Watch—an entirely original design, and our second in an ongoing collaborative series with legendary American watchmaker Timex." (From this page.)
(Disclaimer: There is no formal association between this watch and any soft drink brand or company, My pictures are for fun, with artistic license. No connection is implied by this article.)
Day date window is nice, identical to the Q Timex Reissue. Here, it shows DOM for DOMINGO, Spanish for Sunday. (The day wheel has English and Spanish, but is set at the factory for one or the other. Mine is English, but for a short time, between around midnight and 1:30 am, you can see the Spanish day. After that, it clicks over to English.) Another good look at the dial elements. Notice the faceted and polished steel marker at 6.
Steel bracelet is nice, identical to the Q Timex Reissue, and is described as "woven." It is said to have been reverse-engineered from an original 1970s specimen.
Watch uses a Seiko PC33 movement. Here is a picture of the front side.
From the ordering page.
There is no dial luminous, but I'll take the tradeoff for the beautifully designed dial. Here is the hands glowing.
You can change out the battery (377) using a coin to remove the battery hatch on the back. Hatch is signed both Timex and Huckberry, pretty nice.
Saturday, in Spanish. A really close look at the quality of the design and materials.
Wouldn't it be cool if someone made a watch with the colors of TOPO CHICO? That would be one beautiful watch.
Instead of COLA, they can call it AGUA MINERAL.
The polished and faceted batons at 6, 9, 12 give this watch a bit of a "sparkly" appearance, which might be atypical for a "sports" watch. But this is no ordinary sports watch. This is COLA. Also a good look at the covered or "hooded" lugs, a feature that seems affiliated with the 1970s.
The watch is available only through Huckberry. Here, they have applied their Huckberry inventory sticker, partly covering the Timex sticker. Model is TW2U91100 or TW2U91100JR I'm not sure which.
Worn and Wound reports that only 700 of these were made, but I don't have any confirmation of this.
I really like the Timex Huckberry Cola Watch. It starts out from the Q Timex Reissue, as far as the "engine and chassis" are concerned, but then goes in other directions that create a feeling of vintage and modern at the same time. Shhhh... don't tell anyone, but I think I like it even better than I like the runaway Timex Q Reissue of 2019! And I like the Q a whole lot. It's a really good design, "starting from a blank canvas," and sets it apart from the others.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you will like it.
Alan
Contact
Website: Alan's Vintage Watches.
This is the only photo of the watch on this page that is not mine, it's from Huckberry, and shows nicely the caseback. You can see the caseback is held on with four screws, but you can get to the battery by opening the round hatch with a coin or other tool. (I would see if you can get a flat piece of hard plastic to turn the hatch, to avoid scratching the slot, but I'm fussy.)
This hatch was part of all of the Timex electromechanical watches of the 1960s and 1970s. The earliest ones were more of a "snap" closure, where a flat metal cap fitted on with friction, and was pried off with a tool. The ones with the "coin screw" hatch were made from both steel and a plastic or hard rubbery material, which often deteriorated over time.
