Cartier Tank Française

The most influential dress watch ever made, and Cartier's signature. Louis Cartier designed the Tank in 1917, its flat, parallel 'brancards' inspired by the tracks of a WWI tank, and nearly every rectangular watch since owes it something. The look is unmistakable: a clean rectangular case, Roman numerals, a railway minute track, blued sword hands, and a sapphire cabochon in the crown. It's less one watch than a whole family, the purist Tank Louis Cartier, the accessible Tank Must, the curvier Francaise and Americaine, the elongated Anglaise, plus the shaped rarities Cartier revives through its Prive line. You'll find it in every size and metal, quartz through mechanical. Demand for the Tank has never really cooled, and it remains the benchmark other dress watches are measured against.