De Rijke & Co.

De Rijke & Co. is the Dutch atelier that builds elegant mechanical watches for drivers — and its origin story may be the best road-trip tale in independent watchmaking. Founder Laurens de Rijke is a design engineer with intertwined passions for classic vehicles, adventure, and watches, who learned mechanics working for a renowned Vespa and Lancia restoration company. In 2013 he set off on a fifty-year-old Vespa GS160 along the ancient Silk Road — 11,000 kilometers through Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan — and somewhere along the way, at a flea market in Georgia, he bought his first mechanical watch to keep track of time on the scooter. The watch's limitations on the road planted the ambition for his next adventure: developing a proper mechanical watch for drivers. He devoted his engineering graduation to the project and found a mentor in Bruno Ninaber van Eyben — the renowned Dutch industrial designer (creator of the last guilder coins, among much else) — whose studio taught Laurens the craft of watch design and making.

The result is a genuinely original piece of engineering. The Amalfi Series — named for Italy's winding coastal road and aimed at the gentleman driver who takes a classic car out on weekends — features a case that rotates up to 90 degrees, angling the dial toward the eye so time can be read without lifting a hand from the wheel. The innovative construction sandwiches a 'lugcase' between the case front and caseback: the lugcase carries a slot in which the crown travels as the head rotates, and its ribbed edge engages a tiny 0.4mm spring that delivers a firm, satisfying click at each position and holds the case exactly where it's set. Solid sculpted lugs and a clever strap design allow tool-free strap changes — including a long strap for wearing the watch over a driving jacket, rally-style, for maximum legibility. Nearly everything is done in the small Dordrecht atelier: an iterative design process of drawing, engineering, and rapid prototyping (dozens of prototypes precede a final design), with most parts designed, manufactured, finished, and assembled in-house on traditional machines — cases turned on a Schaublin 102 lathe, surfaces finished by hand in crisp contrasts of sandblasting and polish with edges kept razor sharp. Working at such small quantities, the atelier proudly claims the word 'crafted' — and can accommodate special orders.

The collection has grown into a small garage of evocative destinations: the Capri (€2,195, sold out), and a celebrated collaboration with Guy Allen — the British illustrator beloved for his vintage automotive and motorcycle prints — yielding the 'Air' (€3,395) and a trio of €4,595 rally-inspired pieces named Sahara, Amazon, and Turini, the last honoring the Col de Turini, the legendary Monte Carlo Rally stage. Dutch crafted, driver focused, and utterly unlike anything else at its price, De Rijke & Co. is what happens when a Vespa breaks down on the Pamir Highway and its rider decides the real problem was the watch.