George Bamford, the man behind Bamford Watch Department and its sibling, Bamford London, made his name restyling other brands’ timepieces, rather like a motoring custom shop. No doubt his early days as a collector and trader in cars helped formulate the idea. Now, as well as making some fine watches under his own name, he specialises in formal collaborations with brands like TAG Heuer, Zenith and Bremont. Oh, and there’s his Bamford Grooming Department range of men’s skincare and toiletries too. But cars – specifically vintage cars – remain a love. And, he tells us, one in particular has captured his heart.

I do have one car that really is my dream motor. Honestly, I really do love it. It’s a Ferrari 275 GTB, a car I bought a very long time ago and have not been able to part with. I found it around 17 years back, at which time it was in the sort of condition where it wasn’t worth much in the grand scheme of things. Since then, every year I’ve done something to restore it, and have now brought it back to its original colour, which is black. I haven’t redone the interior though. I’ve kept the seats, and it wasn’t overly knackered – inside it’s black too, but it’s got silvery details, really cool colours.

This car has needed a lot of love. We had to redo the gearbox, redo the engine, and each year it’s something else. We had a problem with the weights on the wheels, so we had to sort that out. And we’ve had it leak all over. I was on a rally a few years ago and the whole thing leaked over the road. But it’s worth it. The 275 GTB is a car I’ve always loved.

Before I became a watch designer, I used to collect cars, and occasionally I’d end up with some pocket money from selling one that I could put into a fund to buy other, older cars, and that’s how I found this Ferrari. It was quite strange because when I first saw it, it was all wrong. It’s from the ’60s, which is an era of design I love, but it was the wrong colour – tangerine orange – and needed a lot of work. But when I drove it, it just made me smile. And that’s why I still have it. I drive it up and down to London from where I live in the country and I’m always grinning. I love it beyond belief!

Everything about this car gives me pleasure. The feel of the gear change, for example. And listening to old music while I drive. It hasn’t got a sound system – I’ve got a little portable Bang & Olufsen speaker that I put inside and I listen to old school, Hotel California-style music, as that’s the vibe – that suits the car, even though it’s an Italian motor. But this is not about showing off in a Ferrari. What I appreciate is the beauty of this particular design. It really has little to do with the fact that it’s a Ferrari.

The great thing is that wherever you go in it, you never turn up feeling like an idiot. That sounds strange, maybe, but a modern Ferrari or modern supercar is all about driving a prestige brand. But for me that is not what I’m into at all. When you look at the 275 GTB, you think about what Enzo Ferrari said about the E-Type: ‘Jaguar’s E-Type is the most beautiful car in the world.’ Well, this is the Italian marque’s version of that beautiful line, the beautiful silhouette: it really is the Ferrari equivalent of the E-Type, and that’s why I think it’s so great.

So, is it true that today it commands a big price because of the Ferrari name? Yes. But is it the Ferrari name that makes me say this is my favourite car? No, it’s about how the car makes me feel. I know that if I go into a corner at X amount of speed, the right front tyre will do this and the back left tyre will do this. I know what it will do in that corner. I know that it’ll jump a little bit but it’ll settle down. I know how it really feels to drive this machine. So, if you ask me which car would I hop into to drive up to London, it’s always this one. And importantly none of my cars are show ponies. None sit in a garage and collect dust; they have to go out and be enjoyed. If not, what am I doing with such a piece of engineering? And this car is one of those that gets used. I drive it from home in the countryside to the office in London and back regularly. I don’t cruise up and down the King’s Road in it because that’s not me. Sure, there’ll be people that give me a thumbs up. But that’s a side note.

Actually, sometimes the thumbs ups do help. I’ve sat on the side of the road on the M25, the M40 and the M4 with my Ferrari, each time waiting for a pickup truck to come and rescue me. But I’m still smiling. Even if I’m out there for two hours, I’m just looking at the car thinking, yeah. And sometimes another nutter drives past in a vintage car and does a thumbs up to me and I think, OK, that’s cool.

Because a vintage car cannot be about reliability. I’d say on one out of 10 drives you wonder ‘is it going to make it?’ That’s true of any vintage car. Like recently: it was one of those times when it was a beautiful day in front of me, but I had to go through a massive storm coming out of London. And there was rain like you’ve never known coming down. I was driving along in the Ferrari and the sealant around the windscreen, all that rubber, well it turned out it had so many holes in it that water was just spraying in my face. They were little jets, but I could see in front of me that the sun was beating down, and I saw a rainbow, and I just thought, ‘whatever’s behind me is behind me, and in front of me is the joy and I’ve just got to get through this rain’. And so that’s the next thing that needs to be done – we need to get the windscreen out and we need to sort out all the leakages. But that’s fine. It’s just one of those things.

The best drive I ever had in it, though, was not in the UK – and it is a British right-hand drive model – but in Sardinia. I was driving on a rally with a great friend. He and I were in the Ferrari and our wives were in another car. It was boiling hot, so my mate and I were almost naked. We both had a pair of shorts on and we were sweating because it was so hot in a black car with the sun beating down. But it just made both of us so happy – three days of driving around Sardinia and every time we stopped and got out, we looked at each other and started giggling. Nothing else mattered, it was just such a glorious experience.

As a watch designer, one thing to consider is what watch to wear when I’m driving the 275. Of course, you can have a dashboard clock, and I have a lovely old Heuer Super Autavia with a built-in stopwatch that screws into the dash. But if I were to choose a wristwatch to match with the Ferrari, of course I’d love to say it would be one of mine – a Bamford – but if I’m being honest, it wouldn’t… It’s another Heuer Autavia. I bought one because it has the same vintage feel as the car – an Autavia with an Abercrombie & Fitch dial [from the late 1940s the American outfitter partnered with the Swiss watchmaker and stocked watches made specially by Heuer, often co-branded, until the mid ’70s] on a Hodinkee strap in aged leather. It has the same vibe as the car: vintage cool. And the colours match – it has a slick black dial with silver sub-dials and white dots. It’s been beaten around a bit, so when you put it on it feels very much like stepping into the Ferrari. So you could say the car and the watch go together perfectly.

bamfordwatchdepartment.com; bamfordlondon.com