Giles English and his brother, Nick, decided to launch their watch company in 2002, and named it after the French farmer who had allowed them to make a forced landing in his pea field when they ran into trouble while flying their vintage Gipsy Moth bi-plane. Fascinated by all things mechanical, the brothers decided to try and revive the great tradition of British watchmaking, and have recently opened the first watchmaking facility in this country for over a century, in Henley, where they manufacture and build their handsome and durable timepieces. Fans of these include a bunch of explorers, adventurers and a certain Mr Tom Hardy. Here, Giles tells us of a motoring love affair that has lasted decades.

I studied engineering, but when I graduated, my first job was in the City [of London], which I did for a couple of years before I embarked on the adventure of launching Bremont watches. The City firm paid me two months’ salary in advance, and I was driving with a mate through Wandsworth one evening and there was – and still is, I believe – a classic car dealer there. So, I was 21 and driving past and I saw this yellow Porsche on the road. I’d always loved 911s. And I thought, shall I, shan’t I? It was my first two months’ earnings, really quite a lot of money for a 21-year-old, and I hadn’t even got a place to stay in London yet. But I went back and had a look at it and thought: ‘Yeah, buy it!’

So I’ve had it since I was 21. I’ve restored it a couple of times and it’s sort of caught fire on me a couple of times, but it’s been pretty reliable overall and I’ve loved it ever since.

It’s a 1973 911 2.4T, so it’s the same age as I am. I bought it for about £6,500. At the time there was a 911S there for £2,000 more but it was black and I preferred the yellow. Looking back, that £2,000 would have got me probably an extra £100k now! But I have no regrets. For years I used the 911 as my daily car, but I’m only using it in the summer now and not all the time; but for 15 years it was the only car I had.

There’s something wonderful about the simplicity of old cars. It means you can fix things – I love to tinker, so I will do bits to it. Simple bits, though I am an engineer by training, which helps. And then, I love driving something that just makes everyone smile. Including me. Every time you get in it you just want to smile. And people you pass, from kids to old grannies, stop and wave at you, which is lovely. So many times I’ve almost had to sell it, but I’ve never been able to bring myself to. Certainly in the early days of Bremont, it would have made so much more sense to sell it and put the money into the company. But I always managed to hold off, and now it’s turned into a family heirloom that will never be sold.

When I was a kid, I used to like the Ferrari Testarossa and Lamborghini Countach. That was my era. The days when you’d see fashion shoots with supermodels posing in front of sportscars. But the first car I had restored was an old VW Beetle, and I became a real air-cooled engine geek. I replaced the engine on that car and loved the simplicity of the engineering. And to me, the Porsche was just really a good-looking Beetle. And to be fair, it didn’t drive in a way that was all that dissimilar, so it was a natural progression from the Beetle to the Porsche.

In the film Le Mans, the opening sequence is of Steve McQueen driving a 1970 911S, from a very similar era to mine. His is in grey, but one of the great things about that period is the colours of the cars – the greens and browns and yellows. They are of that time, which makes them just a little bit different. That’s why mine’s still in the original colour – though I confess I added the stripe.

It was something I did when Nick, my brother, and I decided to drive through America in 2018 to go and visit all our Bremont retailers. We thought, why not do a road trip? So we put my Porsche on a ship along with an old E-Type Jaguar my dad had when we were kids, which my mother still had after he died. We took that out as well and drove across America, and to make them look a bit different, we put opposing but matching stripes on each other’s cars, just to have a bit of a rally feel about the adventure. So my stripe is blue and red on a yellow car, and Nick’s is blue and yellow on a red car.

It was a great experience and, to begin with, quite odd. If you’re driving a car you’ve had all your life on a new continent, it feels like you’ve moved your home to a new country. But I soon got used to it. We started off in New York and we did the whole thing – Death Valley, Yosemite, Joshua Tree, the Blue Ridge Mountains. We even came across bears. We actually covered the country in two trips of about a month each over two years. We drove a lot but we saw the country and saw our retailers and had some fun.

What I realised in the States is that, although this is a sports car, it’s really comfortable and you can put stuff in it, too. And the great thing about an old car like this is you don’t worry about putting mileage on it because it’s not going to affect the value, even though I have no intention of parting with mine. Of course, every 10 years you have to do a bit of an engine rebuild on them because they get a bit knackered. In fact, the Porsche has just gone into a garage to have some love.

For comparison, you should have your watch serviced every three to five years if it’s mechanical. I like to wear one of our early classics such as the ALT1-C pilot’s chronograph, the first watch we designed, when I’m in the Porsche. The ALT1-C was inspired by the pilot’s watches of the late 1960s and early ’70s era, which, of course, is when my Porsche was made. We’ve yet to make one with a yellow dial, though. Though we do have a yellow barrel on a version of our Martin-Baker watch, which we make in partnership with the British aviation company that specialises in ejector seats. And that looks pretty cool.

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