Take one of the most handsome and interesting vehicles from history, combine it with the mind of a world-renowned fashion designer and garnish the whole package with a touch of Swiss horoligcal expertise. The result is a stunning timepiece that wouldn’t look out of place at any royal palace.
Ralph Lauren is infatuated with classic and luxury automobiles, and he owns one of the world’s finest specimens of the breed with his 1938 Bugatti 57SC Atlantic Coupe. 
He has used this fine piece of automotive history as the inspiration for the design of a new wristwatch that has been dubbed the Ralph Lauren Sporting Automotive Skeleton. A black stainless steel case houses the caliber RL 98295 18-jewel mechanical movement that is topped with a bezel made from Amboyna burl wood. The face and the movement combine in a visual symphony of black, gold and white that makes it look incredibly luxurious, but also instantly classic. It really is a work of art.
Like the car on which it’s based, if you have to ask how much this timepiece costs, you can’t afford it. MSRP sits at the $35,000 mark.
Click past the jump to read more about the Ralph Lauren Automotive Skeleton Watch.
Why it matters
They are made by hand from metal, wood, glass and precious materials. Their construction is a collection of intricate moving parts that, through a level of precision and refinement that seems hard to fathom, somehow work together in perfect harmony. While this could be a description of a car, it is also the description that is apt for a quality timepiece. Since the inception of the automobile, timepieces and exploding gasoline have been intertwined. Rolex has decades of history creating race timers, luxury automakers spend bags of money to have custom timepieces installed in their dashes, and now we have two fields intersecting as inspiration for design.
Of all the cars that Ralph Lauren could have used, the 1938 Bugatti 57SC Atlantic Coupe is one of the most interesting. This incredible automobile is not only one of the most handsome coupes ever created, but it’s one of the rarest and most expensive cars in the world. Only four of these machines were ever created, and only three are still known to exist. This particular model has won two “Best In Show” awards, and its estimated value is in the range of $40 million.
1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe
The 1938 Bugatti 57SC Atlantic is a special edition of the 57S, which was based on the Aérolithe concept that debuted in 1935. This concept was created using the same futuristic alloys found in the Type 59 Grand Prix car, and the only way Bugatti could find to properly attach the panels together was with a large, externally riveted seam. The production Atlantic coupes were made from more-traditional aluminum, but the seam was retained as a styling design. Four of these cars were created, but currently the whereabouts are only known of three of them. The fourth car was kept by the factory, but its chassis code is unknown and factory records have since been lost.
Under the hood you will find a 3.2-liter, straight-eight engine with a supercharger that produces 200 horsepower. Top speed was 120 mph.