The New Reservoir Kanister Silver Revs up the Style

Reservoir is a Parisian-based brand with nostalgia for old-school instruments used to gauge different aspects of performance found on cars, aeroplanes and even submarines. Common denominators across all its collections are jumping hours, retrograde minutes indicated by a single central hand and power reserve indicators designed to look like petrol gauges. The latest model from its collection devoted to cars is a silver version of the Kanister inspired by the RPM or tachometer counter found on the dashboard of the mythical Porsche 356 Speedster of the mid-1950s. Fitted with a new Swiss-made engine to keep the three complications in sync, the Reservoir Kanister Silver offers a lot more than an automobile-inspired watch.

Vintage measuring instruments are something of an obsession at Reservoir, the French watch brand founded by François Moreau in 2017, where manometers, altimeters, tachometers, as well as pressure and oil/petrol gauges and counters are reformulated as watches. Split into three collections – Cars, Aeronautics and Marine – Reservoir offers original watches animated by jumping hours placed in an aperture at 6 o’clock, retrograde minutes arranged over a 240° arc and power reserve displays at the bottom of the dial.

Silver Dreams

In a departure from the earlier Kanister models with green and red livery matching the original colours of the 356 tachometers, this latest version has a silver-coloured dial with just a dash of red and black on the power reserve indicator. The thick retrograde minutes track, which arches from 4 to 8 o’clock, still has the speed lines, but instead of being picked out in black, green and red, these are engraved into the dial. The silver numerals 00-60 are applied to the minutes track along with the short silver markers separating the peripheral black minutes track at 10-min intervals. When the central silver hand reaches 60, it glides counterclockwise to 00, and the jumping hours in the aperture at 6 o’clock jump smoothly. Designed to look like a petrol or oil gauge, the power reserve indicator reveals a black block and a black-turning-to-red block to signal an empty tank.

Animated with retrograde and jumping complications, the dial also comes to life with contrasting finishings. Moving in from the engraved minutes track we encounter a subtle grey border framing the central area with its circular brushed finishing. The 41.5mm case is made of polished grade 5 titanium and has short lugs, while the screw-down crown ensures the water-resistance of the case to depths of 50 metres.

Swiss Made RSV-240 Calibre

All Reservoir movements are made in Switzerland by Telos, a manufacture based in La Chaux-de-Fonds specialising in tailor-made mechanical movements. The patented bespoke 124-part module powering Reservoir watches (P068) was designed by Telos and originally mounted on a Swiss automatic ETA 2824-2. For 2022, Telos has optimised the module and coupled it with a La Joux-Perret G100 automatic base with an increased power reserve of 56 hours (37h formerly). The new Reservoir RSV-240 calibre will be deployed across all collections in the coming months.

Availability and Price

The Reservoir Kanister Silver comes on a black leather strap with black stitching and an additional taupe strap that can be exchanged thanks to the quick strap change system. The Reservoir Kanister Silver will be available from April 2022 at the brand’s online store and network of specialist retailers for CHF 4,200 (incl. tax).

For more information, please visit Reservoir watch.com.