Chopard has been the Official Timekeeper and World Sponsor of the Mille Miglia since 1988, and in that time it has built more chronographs around the Italian road race than anyone could easily count. The interesting ones tend to attach themselves to something specific: a driver, a car, a stretch of road. The new Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph Raticosa does the last of those. It is named for the Passo della Raticosa, the 968-metre Apennine climb between Bologna and Florence that the race has crossed for a century, and it puts that road on the back of the watch.
The Raticosa nameplate is not new. Chopard honoured the pass once before, with a limited-edition Raticosa in 2021. What is different this time is that the watch is not a limited edition at all. It joins the permanent Mille Miglia collection, with a warmer dial and a new caseback that give it more of a sense of place than the earlier version had.
The Lucent Steel case
The case measures 40.5mm across and 12.88mm thick, in Chopard's proprietary Lucent Steel, finished with a mix of brushing and polishing. Since the Mille Miglia Classic was downsized in 2023, these proportions have settled into something genuinely wearable, and the glass-box sapphire crystal and welded lugs push the whole thing toward vintage rather than modern-sport. The motoring cues are present but restrained: the crown carries a steering-wheel motif, and the chronograph pushers are knurled like a dashboard control. Water resistance is 50 metres.
A dial that reads vintage
The dial is where the warmth comes from. It is a matte eggshell varnish, with beige Super-LumiNova Arabic numerals, black printed scales and a tri-compax layout that leans closer to a 1960s chronograph than to a current racing watch. Small seconds sit at three o'clock, a 30-minute counter at nine and a 12-hour counter at six, each ringed in soft taupe. A date window is tucked between four and five, and a tachymeter scale runs around the edge. The only real colour is the red-tipped central chronograph seconds hand and the red Mille Miglia arrow near the centre, which is enough.
The caseback does the talking
Where the 2021 Raticosa had a display back, this one is solid, and it earns the trade. The titanium caseback is engraved with a scene: a historic racing car climbing the pass, spectators lining the road, a signpost reading PASSO DELLA RATICOSA, Alt. 968 m, all under a banner marked 1000 Miglia. It looks like an old postcard, and it does more to tie the watch to its road than any dial printing could. This is the detail that separates the Raticosa from the many other Mille Miglia Classics on the shelf.
A proven movement, and the price
Inside is a COSC-certified automatic chronograph built on the ETA A322-11, with 37 jewels, a 28,800 vibration-per-hour beat and 54 hours of reserve, decorated with perlage and Côtes de Genève. It is not an in-house calibre, and Chopard does not pretend otherwise. For a watch meant to be worn hard on a rally weekend, a robust and serviceable movement is arguably the right call.
The watch comes on a brown perforated calfskin racing strap with a Lucent Steel pin buckle, as reference 168619-3020. It is priced at EUR 11,100, or USD 11,700, and sits in the current collection rather than behind a limited-edition wall. The Raticosa does not reinvent the Mille Miglia chronograph. It gives a familiar watch a specific road to belong to, and makes it a permanent option rather than a fleeting one.
