Maybe ‘Race Master’ Isn’t The Best Name For A Racing-Themed Watch

If you’re into cars, there’s a better-than-average chance you’re also into watches, even if you don’t want to admit it. And it makes sense. Both offer pretty designs that cost far too much money and run on a complicated, outdated machine housed inside. Plenty of watches also have some serious racing history. The downside there is that they’re almost all obscenely expensive. The ones that cost less than some Apple Watches, though, tend to be overpriced crap made by companies that count on racing fans having no idea what they’re paying for. But at least none of those companies called their watch the Race Master.

Well, no company except a certain microbrand named Ferro & Company. This isn’t a new watch, although it doesn’t appear to be very popular based on the lack of available reviews. It’s just new to me, thanks to a skeet from BlueSky user @sitkaworldfair. And yeah, they make a pretty good point. That’s, uh, not a great name. It’s also a name that multiple people had to sign off on before it went into production, even if we’re talking about a small company here. They had meetings about this watch. People wrote ad copy for this watch. And at no point did anyone successfully stop them from calling it the Race Master. 

You’d think at some point, someone involved in the process would have said, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t call it the Race Master, especially in light of how popular white nationalist ideology has gotten recently and how they’re, you know, convinced they’re part of the master race.” And you’d also think whoever was in charge would have said, “You know, that’s a great point. Let’s go back to the drawing board here.” Except they didn’t go back to the drawing board. They just ran with Race Master.

The thing is, as far as racing-themed watches go, Ferro has some pretty eye-catching designs. They’re obviously vintage-inspired but you do get some original designs with plenty of color to really make them pop. I don’t know how long they’ll last, but if you wanted to spend $250 or even $300 on one, you could do a lot worse (even if mentioning the name is sure to raise more than a few eyebrows). Except these aren’t $250 watches. The green Race Master Chronograph costs $485. For a quartz movement! 

They don’t even tell you which movement they use, only referring to it as “Japan Made Chronograph Quartz.” A different quartz chronograph (for $525!) that they offer lists the movement as “Japan Made Chronograph Quartz Calibre OS21,” suggesting it’s a Miyota 0S21, but is that the same movement in the other watch? Probably, but you’d think the manufacturer’s website would be the kind of place you could find that information, and you cannot. It’ll probably do the job without any major issues, but again, $485 for a quartz movement is just so much money. Even the $585 automatic version only uses a Miyota 8 Series movement, which again, is fine but not great. 

For your Too Much Money, you get… stainless steel construction, a prone-to-scratching Hesalite crystal, enough water resistance that it might not die on you if you get caught in the rain and some decent finishing? Pretty good finishing? I can’t really tell from the images provided, and it was hard to get a good idea of what I was looking at in the one independent video review I was able to find. 

But even if you absolutely love the design and think I’m an idiot for suggesting these watches are too expensive, do you really want to go around telling people you now own a Race Master? Exactly.

When I reached out to Ferro to ask about the Race Master, I really didn’t expect a response. I couldn’t find a media contact and had to go through their general contact portal, and there’s no guarantee those kinds of messages ever get seen. Much to my surprise, though, Ferro got back to me pretty quickly. Here’s what they said:

To clarify, our Race Master watches are inspired purely by classic motorsport from the 1960s and 70s — an era of design and racing heritage we love. The name refers to mastering the race track, not anything ideological.

We absolutely do not associate our brand or products with any political or extremist movements. “Race Master” and “master race” are entirely unrelated terms, and we stand firmly against any form of discrimination. It’s unfortunate that the latter phrase has such a negative modern context.

While I fully believe they didn’t intentionally make a watch for white supremacists, I don’t know. I still think there are better names for a racing-themed watch than Race Master.