News · Chopard

Chopard names a chronograph after a mountain pass, and backs it with a chronometer certificate

Two 500-piece references in Lucent Steel, 42 mm across with a certified self-winding chronograph and beige lume on off-white or black, at AU$13,700 each.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 18 August 2026

• Chopard has named a new Mille Miglia chronograph after the Raticosa, the Apennine pass the historic Italian road race climbs between Florence and Bologna.
• It comes in two 500-piece references, a varnished off-white dial and a galvanic black one, both with beige Super-LumiNova on painted Arabic numerals.
• Both references are listed on Chopard's Australian site at AU$13,700, in a 42 mm Lucent Steel case with a chronometer-certified self-winding chronograph.

A watch named after a hill, which is a strange and rather good idea

Most motorsport watches are named after a race, a circuit or a driver, because those are the things with logos attached. Very few are named after a piece of road. Chopard has gone and named this one after the Raticosa, the climb through the Apennines that the Mille Miglia route drags its cars over between Florence and Bologna, and the choice tells you what the brand thinks the appeal of the event actually is: not the finish line, but the parts where the driving is hard. That is the Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph Raticosa.

Chopard's involvement with the Mille Miglia is long-running and the Mille Miglia watches have been part of the catalogue for decades, so there is no novelty in the association. What is new is how specific this one is willing to get. Naming a limited edition after a mountain pass is a bet that the buyer knows the route, which is a more flattering assumption than most brands make about their customers.

Off-white or black, and the choice is less obvious than it looks

There are two references, each capped at 500 pieces. The 168589-3033 has a varnished off-white dial with a circular satin-brushed finish, and the 168589-3034 has a black dial produced by galvanic treatment with the same brushed texture. Both carry painted Arabic numerals in beige Super-LumiNova, which is the detail that decides it for me.

Beige lume on an off-white dial is a soft, almost invisible thing in daylight, the numerals sitting a shade warmer than the surface behind them. Beige lume on a black dial reads as a vintage cream against dark, which is a much louder look and the one most people will reach for on the shots. I keep changing my mind about which I would have, because the off-white is the better watch in a room and the black is the better watch in a photograph, and I am not sure which of those I am actually buying.

Lucent Steel, and a case that is not as big as it sounds

At 42 mm across and 12.67 mm thick this is not a small chronograph, and Chopard makes it in Lucent Steel, the house alloy that carries a high proportion of recycled content and takes a harder polish than standard stainless. In practice that means the flat surfaces on the case flanks hold their brightness rather than going soft with a year of desk diving, which is not nothing on a watch that will be worn.

The crown screws down and water resistance is 50 metres, which is a slightly awkward number to defend. Fifty metres is fine for rain, for washing your hands and for getting caught out by a wave at the beach with your shoes still on, and it is not fine for swimming laps with any confidence. On a chronograph with pushers, though, 50 metres is the honest rating and I would rather have it stated plainly than see 100 metres printed on a watch nobody should submerge anyway.

Thirty-seven jewels and a chronometer certificate, visible through the back

The movement is a self-winding chronometer-certified chronograph running at 4 Hz, or 28,800 vibrations per hour, with 37 jewels, a flat balance spring and a three-spoke balance wheel, and it is 6.10 mm thick. It drives central hours and minutes, small seconds, a date, the chronograph seconds hand and both a 30-minute and a 12-hour counter, which is the full set rather than the abbreviated version.

The power reserve is 54 hours. That is enough to carry a watch through a weekend if you are wearing it and not enough to leave it in a drawer over one, which for a chronograph you are meant to be using is a fair place to land. A sapphire caseback shows the certified movement, and given that chronometer certification is a claim rather than a look, letting people see the thing that earned it is the right move.

Brown leather on both, and the perforations do the talking

The off-white reference comes on brown perforated calfskin with matching stitching, the sort of racing-glove punching that has been on driving watches since long before it was a design cue. The black reference gets a plain brown calfskin. Both use a stainless steel pin buckle rather than a deployant, which keeps the watch thinner on the wrist and is the kind of small decision that tells you somebody wore the prototype.

A thousand watches across two references, named after a hill, is a fairly confident piece of catalogue planning. It is also a reminder of what Chopard is good at, which is making a motorsport watch that does not need a helmet on the box to explain itself.

Chopard Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph Raticosa pricing and availability

The Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph Raticosa comes in two references, 168589-3033 with the off-white dial and 168589-3034 with the black dial, each limited to 500 pieces. Chopard's Australian site lists both at AU$13,700, sold through Chopard boutiques and authorised retailers.