Hanhart puts Steve McQueen's signature on the 417 ES chronograph

Hanhart has put Steve McQueen's name on a watch he actually wore in private life. The German maker's new 417 ES Steve McQueen Limited Edition No. 1 carries the actor's signature on the dial, approved by his grandchildren Chase and Madison McQueen. Production is capped at 300 pieces.

The watch is priced at €2,890 including VAT. It is the first time Hanhart has been able to place McQueen's name directly on a reissue of the vintage pilot's chronograph, a connection the brand only made with the approval of his descendants. Both grandchildren were directly involved in the project.

The 417 ES is the stainless-steel version of a chronograph Hanhart introduced in the mid-1950s as a pilot's watch for the German Bundeswehr. Designed to be robust, readable and simple to operate, it had a black dial, bi-compax layout, rotating fluted bezel and a fluted crown, but no red pusher.

The ES designation stands for Edelstahl, German for stainless steel, and the model became a more durable and rarer variant of the design. Photographs of McQueen away from Hollywood repeatedly show a 417 ES on his wrist, including around his motorcycle racing, and the new watch formalises a documented relationship rather than inventing one.

In 1964 McQueen rode for the US team at the International Six Days Trial in East Germany on a modified Triumph, wearing race number 278 as part of the first official American squad. He later entered events including the Baja 1000, sometimes racing under the name Harvey Mushman to shed the attention of his acting career.

The case measures 39mm across, matching the original, with a thickness of 13.3mm including its highly domed sapphire crystal and a 46mm lug-to-lug span. Brushed and polished surfaces alternate on the steel, keeping the compact proportions of the modern 417 ES introduced in 2020 and later refined.

The fluted bidirectional bezel returns with its red insert, and the red HyCeram chronograph pusher at four o'clock, added to the collection last year, is the other immediately recognisable element. The screw-down crown carries Hanhart's historical h logo. Water resistance is 100 metres.

Sapphire is used for both the curved front crystal and the screw-down caseback, which makes the movement visible for the first time in this specific 39mm watch. A display back had previously been a feature on the 42mm 417 ES models of 2025 only. The dial is matte black with white Arabic numerals.

The layout keeps the traditional pilot-watch arrangement, with running seconds at nine o'clock and a 30-minute counter at three. Numerals and hands are filled with Super-LumiNova in a Light Old Radium tone, and the hands retain the slightly curved-down tips originally shaped to reduce parallax errors when reading the indications.

What sets this edition apart is the signature, kept relatively small on the dial below the shockproof inscription and above the six. The movement is the hand-wound AMT5100 M, built by AMT Manufacture, Sellita's high-end department, on the base of the Sellita SW510 M, itself derived from the Valjoux 7750 but substantially modified.

The calibre includes a flyback function, runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour and stores at least 58 hours of power. Hacking seconds allow the movement to be stopped while setting the time. One press of the red pusher at four resets and restarts the running chronograph instantly.

Hanhart recreates the way McQueen wore the watch, on a cuff strap running underneath the case. The continuous leather band is made from Shell Cordovan supplied by the Italian tannery Comipel, with a padded section under the watch, and it closes on a historical-logo pin buckle. The 20mm lug width fits other straps as well as Hanhart's steel bracelet.

Each numbered example ships with a booklet, a numbered plaque and a limitation card inspired by McQueen's 1964 racing licence, which Chase and Madison McQueen helped design and signed themselves. The box also holds the edition's most playful detail: a bottle of red nail polish referencing the famous Hanhart red pusher.

That detail echoes the legend that a pilot's girlfriend painted the reset button red so he would remember her and return unharmed, while its practical purpose was to make the pusher stand out and prevent accidental resets mid-flight. Hanhart, the family said, did not embellish the story.

A connection we have covered before

McQueen is more often attached to the Heuer Monaco from Le Mans and the Rolex Submariner he wore off screen. Our guide to Submariner alternatives names the Tudor Black Bay the closest match at about $5,000, roughly half the Rolex's $10,050 retail, with the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M as the strongest premium rival.

We rank Rolex first among luxury watch brands ahead of Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet, scoring the field on heritage, in-house movement-making, value retention and design language. McQueen's Hanhart rests outside that list but earns its place through decades of documented use rather than a paid placement.

The McQueen link extends to names this publication keeps pages for, though the connection here is the actor himself rather than the fashion house. The 417 ES Steve McQueen Limited Edition No. 1 is on sale now through Hanhart, with the brand noting it remained available on its website at launch.