Hamilton recently debuted the Khaki Pilot Pioneer Mechanical, inspired by a watch originally made in the 1970s for the British military, called the W10.

Keeping true to its origins the stainless steel watch case is tonneau-shaped and measures a petite 36 mm in diameter and just 42 mm lug-to-lug. This will work well for smaller wrists, for both men and women.

The black dial has a knock-down texture punctuated by white printed Arabic numerals (a luminescent triangle at 12 instead of a numeral), with a white printed railroad chapter ring that has faux luminous indices. Like the original, the hour hand is sword-shaped, while the minute hand is pencil-shaped, and both have a beige lume that harkens back to the past. A needle-shaped center seconds hand is also just like the original. One difference is that the old dial uses the historic logo and symbol and the new one uses modern markings.

The case is brushed and the caseback is solid, screwed down by four screws. The crown is of the push-in variety and water-resistance is 100 meters. A prominent boxy-crystal protects the dial and to keep the cost down Hamilton used a mineral crystal instead of a sapphire.

Driving the hours, minutes, and seconds in an ETA-based manually wound movement, referred to as caliber H-50, which has 80 hours of power reserve.

There’s a choice of a nylon or leather Nato-style strap, and retail is $845 and $895, respectively. View more Hamilton watch coverage in our archive.

 

Photos by Hamilton.