Say 'Audemars Piguet' and the first thing that comes to mind is the Royal Oak - or if you own a pair of faded jeans, the Royal Oak Offshore. As is well-documented, the Royal Oak was Audemars Piguet's final lifeline, its saviour from the onslaught of cheap Japanese watches in the early 1970s. Fairly or unfairly, it has become the brand's flagship piece, an iconic design penned by an iconic designer for the iconic watchmaker.

From keeping pilots on time as they crossed from one longitude to another, to accompanying astronauts into space, watchmaking has played an integral part in much of mankind's advancement during the 20th century. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention, and watchmaking had to constantly evolve to meet the needs of the wearer, where accurate timekeeping was crucial to success—and in some cases, survival.

If there's one thing watch enthusiasts share a love for, it's the supercar. Whether powerful or beautiful, designed to stick to a track or swoop through the French Riviera, a supercar is—like watchmaking—engineering with soul, passion and excitement. We take a visit to the headquarters of VVS sports and prestige automobiles to sample three of recent history's finest.

Many examples of the intersection between engineering and beauty exist in this world. Concorde is one, the Shard another and IWC's original Portuguese is a third. What these three things have in common is the ability to make a practical solution into something desirable: concorde had its pencil-thin white fuselage draped in aggressively swept wings; the Shard has a domineering presence on the London skyline that slices through the low cloud; and the Portuguese has a stark and simplistic elegance bereft of any cumbersome design appendages. The Portuguese was made to be a watch—a big watch—and the purity of its inception gives it an honest, appealing quality.