Cartier Tank Cintrée

A brief history of Cartier’s ‘curved tank’ , leading up to something special

“Not Vacheron Constantin?” was probably your first thought. My love for VC is obvious. Besides the occasional Patek and AP, Cartier is one other brand I’ve admired, albeit from afar. Why afar? Read on to see how that has changed.

Before we start, I would like to specially mention a few excellent websites - monochromewatches, watchesbysjx and Revolution, all of whom have done very informative groundwork on the Cintrée (French for curved tank) from Cartier. Please check out their articles if you want to know more technical details. With that, let us begin.

1917 - The first Tank

Speaking of Cintree, we have to touch on its ‘prefixed’ name - Tank. Louis Cartier, eldest of the Cartier brothers conceived the Tank wristwatch in 1917 for US military General John Pershing. It was only serially produced 2 years later in 1919.

The very first Tank wristwatch, pic credits: monochromewatches

The Tank’s design was inspired by the armoured tanks of WWI, except you need to visualise a tank from the top. So why not call it ‘Bird’s Eye Tank'? Jokes aside, mention Cartier wristwatch and a few signature traits come to mind. Sapphire cabochon on a beaded crown, roman numerals for hours, and railway tracks for minutes, we first saw these with the Santos-Dumont, and will continue to see them moving forward.

1921 - Tank Cintrée

There was once a lion that escaped in the 1920s and it went roaring… isn’t how ‘Roaring Twenties’ got its name. Gatsby and glitzy describes the preferences of a prospering and un-prohibited American society post-WWI.

During this period, other watch brands like Vacheron Constantin also released a dandy asymmetrical watch on cushion case, now simply called American 1921. Coincidentally, 1921 is also the year Cartier released their first Cintrée.

First Tank Cintrée from 1921

Tank, but longer was probably what Louis Cartier first thought of. Yet, a longer watch meant the lugs will protrude beyond one’s wrist, and that would’ve been unsightly on the savoir-faire crowd whom are Cartier’s customers. Lest we forget, Cartier is the king of jewellery. Safe to say, they know a thing or two about wrist ergonomics. Solution? Curve the Case.

drawing from Cartier showing a watch designed for Princess Mdivani

With that curvature came unending comfort. Speaking from personal experience, this is a watch I can wear the whole day without feeling any wrist fatigue (yes, it’s a thing for us spoilt WIS). That isn’t all. Inspect the numerals closer they are ‘hooked’ to wrap around three corners of chemin de fer. Talk about attention to details.

3 numerals with ‘hooked’ serifs, following the angle of corners

1929 - Arabic Numerals

If you’re one of the greatest stars to ever grace the stage like Fred Astaire, standard roman numerals from Cartier just wouldn’t do. Enter Arabic numerals, and while we’re at it, make them explode with lume. The cherry atop this cake are the cathedral-style hands, instead of standard breguet-style hands.

Exploding arabic numerals filled with lume, made for Fred Astaire, pic credits: ACM

Cartier didn’t merely let this variation of Cintrée slip away into oblivion, as you will see later in 2004. Fast forward a few years and to another major city that was booming in the 60s - London.

1960s - London Cintrée

Cartier’s London outpost was helmed by Louis’ brother, Jacques Cartier. In what I think is a bid to differentiate from their Parisien branch, railway tracks are removed, breguet-styled hands are swapped with straight sword hands, and a pointed-cabochon is flattened with a flat, octagonal gem. Roman numerals are kept but stretched to fill the entire span of the curved dial.

London Cintrée from 1960s, pic credit: watchesbysjx

Structured, like a classically constructed English suit is how I would describe the London Cintrée. Next, we move into neo-vintage period of post-90s, where Cartier watches sought a revival via CPCP - Collection Privée Cartier Paris.

1998 - CPCP

Imagine you own a Jaguar E-Type, Ferrari 250 GTO and original Porsche 911, three of the most iconic supercars. Bear with me petrolheads, but remove those naturally aspirated old engines and replace them with modern turbo engines. That’s what Collection Privée Cartier Paris is to me.

Simply put, if you’re a brand who has many illustrious designs from yore, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel.

Tank, Tortue, Tonneau, Asymetrique, Cloche of course Cintrée. Iconic and highly desirable shapes are remade with modern day movements, a tasteful blend of both worlds.

pic credits: ssongwatches, acollectedman

Each shape deserves its own article, but here we turn our focus back on the Cintrée. In 2004, Cartier released 50 platinum, 150 yellow gold ‘curved tanks’ with the arabic numerals of 1929. While CPCP ended in 2008, the program was reborn in 2017 simply known as ‘Privé Collection’

2018 - Privé Collection

The Privé collection was off to a bang in 2017 with the un-obtanium known as ‘Crash’. In 2018, the spotlight returned to Cintrée. Remember the dandy arabic numerals from 1929? For this modern re-edition, only ‘12’ and ‘6’ are used, while batons are used for the remaining indices.

3 variants from left to right, rose gold, platinum and yellow gold, pic credit: Hodinkee

2021 - 100th Anniversary

For a design to still be relevant 100 years later is no mean feat. This is both a testament to Cartier’s design prowess, as much as it is to their brand power. The year 2021 saw not just renewed interest in Cartier’s wristwatches, but also a post-apocalyptic world where consumption patterns are re-wired.

Heat-blued Breguet styled hand and full roman numeral indices, the 100th anniversary edition (only 150 pieces made) paid faithful homage to the original Cintrée from 1921.

2021 edition vs 1921 edition
pic credits: ssongwatches, monochromewatches

Our interest were piqued further with vintage-centric storytelling, mirroring prevailing preferences for slimmer and smaller watches. I too, am only human and vulnerable to the romantic stories painted by the picassos of marketing. So when given the chance to own a slice of history, I would at least like to make it mine (and ours @ken.delugs). Enter Special Order.

2023 - Special Order(s)

Animal style fries or protein style burger are some items from the ‘secret’ menu of In-and-Out Burger. While most people order a basic burger and fries, those in the ‘know’ gets to customise their meal as per their preference. Cartier’s NSO program (New Special Order) is somewhat similar.

But instead of patties and cheese, loyal supporters of Cartier get to customise the numerals, hands and dial colour.

Each NSO is unique but Cartier still owns the right to reproduce the design, and will limit the variables based on their tasteful advice. That means no emojis or millennial slang like peace/love/laugh on the dial. If you’re into those, I do know of a brand to recommend you.

Jokes aside, my NSO journey began with Ken, founder of Delugs. I count him as one of my closest friends, someone I deeply admire for his business acumen and generosity. He invited me to partake in a pair of unique Cintrées. The brief was simple: Two Cintrees, One classic, One modern. Let’s start with the former.

Classic

The key here is restraint. We chose dark blue for the numerals, which under most indoor lighting appears black. I’m a big fan of Cartier’s CPCP’s iconic trait - guilloché dial radiating outwards from center.

Under most angles, this guilloché is faint and hardly discernible. But if you really want to see, here it is:

Guilloché close-up

Modern

Think of this as an alter-ego in both aesthetic and concept. Here, we see Ken’s Cintrée with a gradient blue dial. He chose a silver (instead of blue) Breguet-styled hands and white numerals for greater contrast against that ‘smoked’ blue dial.

Gradient blue, bursting in the sun

This pair of Cintrées celebrates our friendship and more. It also reflects our personalities; one more nostalgic, the other more forward-looking. Try and guess who is which.

Ken’s blue Cintrée looking forward at mine

My white Cintrée looking back at Ken’s

Regardless of their aesthetic differences, both our Cintrées share the same ruby cabochon on their crowns, which for those who know, are reserved for Cartier watches in Platinum only. Now we all know ;)

Red ruby cabochons on both our crowns, signed 2023/ no.1

My Perspective

The scarlet crowns represent both our red-blooded passion for watches. If you think I’m romanticising too much, you’re right. After all, red is the colour of love and you know what they say about love being blind?

For a long time, I thought of Cartier as a jewellery brand. I still do and it’s not meant to be derogatory. If Tiffany started making watches (they actually do), most of us watch geeks wouldn’t them time of the day, pun intended. The contrary is true, try and see if ladies would chase any jewellery from Patek.

In terms of wristwatches, while Cartier focused on the mass market from 70s to early 90s and (still) made certain models produced in larger quantities, they have also isolated a niché market with the CPCP or what is now called the Privé collection. Looking at how successful the maison is doing today, I’d say the current leadership has successfully clou-ed (see foot note) their positioning.

Finally, along came Ken with this brilliant pair of NSO Cintrées. I no longer need to admire the brand from afar, but merely raise my wrist up to my eyes. Thank you Cartier SG team for taking care of us, and to their NSO team for fielding our requests in going back and forth with the manufacture. Last, and most importantly my biggest gratitude to Ken. Here’s to our friendship 🥂

TLDR: I secretly admire Cartier.
p.s: clou means nail, reference to Cartier’s juste un clou (just a nail) collection