VIDEO: IWC CEO left gobsmacked by visit to the Mercedes F1 team garage

Nick Kenyon

Christoph Grainger-Herr is not only the IWC CEO, but also one of the most passionate folks in the watch industry. In a Clubhouse room recently he spoke to me about one of his areas of collecting that isn’t horological focused: Hot Wheels cars. Yep, Chris loves his 1:64 scale model cars, enough to extend the basement of his home to allow space enough to display 3000 of his favourite Hot Wheels cars. He even worked with Hot Wheels last year on the release of a Hot Wheels IWC Schaffhausen Classic Racing Team Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing (complete with Euro Hauler), that was originally raced by F1 legend David Coulthard.

In essence, he seems passionate about everything on four wheels, a fact which is evident when you hear him talk about visiting the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team garage. A truly world class and cutting-edge engineering facility, the garage blew him away when he first visited it during a testing session in Barcelona one year.

“On the side was Nico’s [Rosberg] car, which was completely in bits,” he recalls. “My first ever trip to the Formula 1 garage and my instant response was, ‘Oh, so you’re not driving anymore today?’

“They were like, “No, he’s going out in 20 minutes,” and I said, ‘But there’s no car!”

We won’t spoil the rest, so check out the full video above…