Porsche Design and Hodinkee bring back a legendary chronograph layout

For more than twenty years one of the most admired chronograph layouts was out of reach, locked away by a patent. Now that it has lifted, Porsche Design brings it back with the Porsche Design Chronograph 1 Utility, Limited Edition for Hodinkee. The watch is the second chapter of the brand’s partnership with Hodinkee, the platform for watch retail and editorial content, and it is limited to 350 pieces worldwide.

Military roots

The story starts in the late 1970s and 1980s. A number of air and naval forces approached Porsche Design directly and asked for a Chronograph 1 built to their own operational specifications. These military variants had to be legible in all conditions, dependable under duress and serviceable in the field. Hodinkee and Porsche Design have reinterpreted that standard for today’s collector: not the uniform, but the same uncompromising commitment to utility, function and simplicity.

WERK 01.340 revives an icon

At the heart of it all is the Lemania 5100, an automatic movement famed for its central chronograph minutes hand, running seconds at 9, a 12-hour totaliser at 6 and a 24-hour indicator at 12. It outlived its own discontinuation and became a grail for collectors of utilitarian design. Once the patent had lifted, Porsche Design’s watch engineers in Grenchen, Switzerland, set to work and brought the layout up to modern standards. The result is WERK 01.340, a new complication built on the brand’s proven automatic chronograph platform. It brings back the central-minute chronograph, the 24-hour indicator at 12 o’clock and quick-set date setting for the first time in over twenty years. The movement is COSC certified and offers a 60-hour power reserve.

Form follows function, again

The case is uncoated titanium, a nod to Porsche Design’s earliest titanium chronographs and to the lightweight construction of the 911 that inspired the Chronograph 1 in the first place. The central stop-minute hand measures up to 60 minutes; its deep-black finish, red fighter-jet-shaped tip and jumping-minute mechanism keep it legible against the black dial. The central chronograph seconds hand now carries Super-LumiNova, while the 12-hour counter stays red. Instead of a tachymeter, the chapter ring runs a 12-hour scale for tracking elapsed time.

The dial keeps the historic Porsche Design logo and the period-correct typeface, adds the Utility lettering at 3 o’clock and reads “Porsche Design for Hodinkee” below the date window, just as “by Orfina” once appeared on the original dials. A “Ti” marker near the top recalls the tritium badges of vintage pieces, and the date window shows the days of the week in English and German.

In their own words

“When we knew the patent was becoming available, Hodinkee was the clear partner to help tell this story,” says Rolf Bergmann, CEO of Porsche Design Timepieces Manufaktur. Hodinkee founder Benjamin Clymer points to clarity: the layout was built around a single idea, to “read this watch in a glance, under any condition, without a second of hesitation”.

Bracelet, strap and availability

The watch comes on a matching titanium bracelet. The box also holds a classic Bund strap in Agave Green, made from leather used in the interiors of Porsche sports cars and finished with GT Silver stitching; a quick-change mechanism swaps the two in seconds without tools. Each case back carries a laser-engraved edition number out of 350. The edition has been available since 1 October 2026, 5 p.m. CEST, priced at 8,950 euros. In Europe it is sold online by Porsche, in Porsche Design Stores, at selected Porsche Centers and selected retailers, in the U.S. exclusively via Hodinkee and Watches of Switzerland.

A trilogy in progress

Porsche Design and Hodinkee first teamed up in 2024 for the Chronograph 1, Hodinkee 2024 Edition. The Utility is the second chapter of a three-part collaboration, so the final piece is already part of the plan.