Autodromo Group B watches
First launched in 2015, Group B is a product line of luxury watches by Autodromo, a New York-based company which takes its inspiration from the golden age of motorsport. The series name is derived from “a set of regulations introduced in 1982 for competition vehicles in sportscar racing and rallying regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA)” known as Group B.
For the logo, Autodromo referenced the typography featuring Traffic used by Peugeot for their Group B rally model, the 205 Turbo 16, see the post by Sean-Paul. Since Tom Hultgren’s Letraset design was lowercase-only, the capital B had to be added. It could have been derived from the numeral 3. Autodromo introduced some more customizations: hairlines were thickened, the two-storey g was replaced by a simpler shape, and the slash through p was moved up a bit. See the comments for a glyph set of the original Traffic.
Box with a 1980s-style grid illustration and the logo shwon on an angle.
Aluminium case.
Number plate with the Group B logo.
Contents of the case, including stickers with the logos of Autodromo and the Group B series.
Cover of the instruction booklet
3 Comments on “Autodromo Group B watches”
Here’s a Letragraphica sheet with the complete original glyph set. There are alternates for ijlqvw. I suppose the B-like glyph in the last like (next to £) is the German ß. There’s no single-storey g, but several digital interpretations of Traffic and similar 1980s faces use a shape similar to the one seen in the Group B logo, see e.g. BD Varicolor or HFF Code Deco.
Scan: Mini Graff
This sounds indeed plausible, considering that Peugeot didn’t use Traffic out of the box either, but modified the letterforms to be more robust. Most strikingly, the r got a beefier hairline, just like in Autodromo’s homage.
Here’s Autodromo wordmark for Evoluzione, the second series (?) of Group B watches from 2016. The forms for e, v, or z don’t match the Traffic typeface, supporting the theory that their use is derived from the Peugeot lettering.