Description
Steve McQueen's Monaco is the watch everyone cites, but the chronograph he actually bought for himself and wore off-set was a Hanhart 417 ES. On 2 October 2026 Hanhart made that relationship official: the 417 ES Steve McQueen Limited Edition No. 1, 300 pieces at €2,890, and the first time the brand has been licensed to put his name on a dial.
The licensing matters more than it usually does. Plenty of brands attach a dead actor to a watch through an estate deal and a stock photograph. This one was developed with McQueen's grandchildren, who approved the edition and had a hand in the strap — which is modelled on the bund McQueen wore on his own example rather than on a catalogue illustration. The "No. 1" in the name implies more to come, and on this evidence that is not an unwelcome prospect.
Design
Hanhart has not redrawn the 417. The case is 39mm across, 13.3mm thick and 46mm lug to lug in brushed and polished stainless steel, with a 20mm lug width and a screw-down crown good for 100m — genuinely wearable proportions, and closer to the 1950s original than most mid-century reissues manage. A box-domed sapphire crystal sits above the dial, doing the distortion the original's acrylic used to.
The dial is matte black with Super-LumiNova on the hands and numerals, the old Hanhart logo restored, and McQueen's signature set below the shockproof marking at six o'clock. The two signatures Hanhart collectors look for are both present: the bidirectional fluted bezel with its red insert, and the red HyCeram reset pusher — a detail that came from pilots marking the start of a timing run and is now the quickest way to recognise a Hanhart across a room. The strap is dark brown shell cordovan on a pin buckle.
Specifications
- Reference: H705L.210 (hanhart.com; listed by some outlets as H705L.210-21102)
- Case material: Stainless steel, brushed and polished
- Case diameter: 39mm
- Case thickness: 13.3mm
- Lug-to-lug: 46mm
- Lug width: 20mm
- Crystal: Box-domed sapphire
- Bezel: Bidirectional fluted, red insert
- Water resistance: 100m, screw-down crown
- Movement: Sellita calibre AMT5100 M, hand-wound
- Frequency: 28,800 vibrations/hour (4Hz)
- Power reserve: 58 hours
- Functions: Hours, minutes, small seconds, flyback chronograph
- Dial: Matte black, Super-LumiNova, historic Hanhart logo, Steve McQueen signature at 6 o'clock
- Strap: Dark brown shell cordovan bund with pin buckle
- Limited edition: 300 pieces, individually numbered
- Price: €2,890 (including 19% German VAT)
What's Exciting
The flyback at this price. The AMT5100 M is a hand-wound Sellita with a genuine flyback mechanism — press one pusher and the running chronograph resets and restarts in a single action, no stopping first. That function was built for pilots and rally drivers timing consecutive legs, and it is the correct complication for this particular watch's story. It is also a function that normally sits several thousand euros higher up the market; getting it hand-wound, under €3,000, in a 39mm steel case is a genuinely strong value proposition.
What else works is the restraint. Hanhart resisted the temptation to put a portrait on the dial or a film still on the caseback. You get a signature, the right strap, and an otherwise faithful 417 — which respects both the watch and the association. The 58-hour reserve is a practical bonus on a manual chronograph you have to remember to wind.
Worth noting for the sceptics: the movement is a supplied Sellita, not in-house, and 300 pieces of a licensed-celebrity edition will carry a premium over a standard 417 ES. Whether the signature is worth that gap is a personal question, and the standard model remains the value play if it is not.
History
Hanhart was founded in Diessenhofen in 1882 and moved to Schwenningen in Germany's Black Forest, building its reputation on stopwatches and then on pilot's chronographs — the Calibre 41 of 1938 and the Calibre 40 flyback that followed were standard issue for German aviators. The red reset pusher is a direct inheritance from that era.
The 417 ES arrived in 1957 as a flyback chronograph for the then-new Bundeswehr air force, the "ES" denoting the Eintrückschaltung flyback mechanism. McQueen bought one in the 1960s and wore it on and around the sets of his racing films, and it became the quiet alternative to the Monaco in the story collectors tell about him. Hanhart has reissued the 417 repeatedly since the model's revival, but until now the McQueen connection has been something the market talked about rather than something the brand was permitted to print.
