The Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze Limited Edition Watch

The new Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze is limited to 999 pieces worldwide and features all the fundamental features of a luxury dive watch. Impressive water resistance, luminous dial details, a sealed caseback, screw-in crown and a corrosion-resistant bronze case. The Bell & Ross BR 03 case is combined with an innovative unidirectional rotating bezel, ensuring that the dive watch makes no compromises as a reliable, accurate and legible tool for underwater exploration.

It wasn’t all that long ago when Bell & Ross merged its dive watch concept with the square-shaped case to make the first BR 03-92 Diver watch. The combination certainly made for an unusual one, but the famous “circle within a square” soon found its place within the brand’s catalogue quite comfortably and took to the water equally as easily. The BR 03-92 Diver watch was well received and incorporated the already well-established BR 01 design but with some updates to bring it up to speed with a modern diver’s tool.

Last year Bell & Ross released a boutique-exclusive – the BR 03-92 Diver Orange Limited Edition, which joined a growing family comprising iterations crafted from bronze, ceramic and stainless steel. Also joining the club was the Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Full Lum. Just as its name promised, it featured a fully luminous dial and focused on day and night legibility. Similar to this design, the new Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Bronze Limited Edition features a closed caseback, screw-down crown and a sapphire crystal glass front to protect both the dial and the internals of the watch from water, heat, light and dust damage, as well as scratching, knocks and denting. Suffice to day, the Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Bronze Limited Edition watch looks like a fully-fledged diving tool without even having to try all that hard. Bell & Ross has once again, researched its design to the enth degree, ensuring materials, proportions and features are all harmoniously balanced within its striking, confident bronze case.

For any luxury watch manufacturer wanting to create its own diver’s watches, there are strict rules for meeting the standards of an aquatic watch. To classify as a bonafide diving watch, the timepiece has to meet the demands of the wearer with qualities that include (but are not restricted to) robustness, accuracy, legibility and reliability. It also has to pass the rules stipulated by the ISO 6425 standards for diving watches. Interestingly, Bell & Ross showed just how far its daring and out-of-the-box watchmaking could go by pledging that the case of the 03-92 Diver watch could match the wearer-friendly and efficient design of a classic diving watch despite its unusually shaped case. To do this the brand incorporated a unidirectional rotating bezel into its construction – an indispensable feature for any professional or amateur diver wanting to keep track of remaining underwater time effectively. This, of course, was no easy task, but given that Bell & Ross has been focussing on diver-oriented watches since 1997 (the Hydromax with its 11,100-meter oil-filled water-resistant case) the BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze takes to the wrist like a duck to water.

The case:

The case of the new Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Rd Bronze Limited Edition watch measures a broad 42mm x 42mm case and has been crafted from a material that has made a return to the luxury watch market with growing popularity. Bronze is a material that not only gives a timepiece a different look but rather a few, since its changing patina over time adds character and charm to the timepiece with age. More specifically, Bell & Ross uses CuSn8 bronze – an alloy that contains mainly copper, strengthening its corrosion resistance. Being denser than conventional stainless steel, it has a lower resistance to scratches making bronze an ideal material to use in a luxury diving watch.

When ell & Ross released the BR 03-92 for the first time, it featured a thicker caseback along with a soft-iron inner cage for protecting the movement inside from magnetic damage. These features, along with a thicker sapphire crystal, make the new Limited Edition Bell & Ross Diver watch capable of better handling water pressure. The case, which is also water-resistant to 300 meters is executed in a mix of satin-finish and polished techniques. Gold coloured 60-minute markings applied to a deep red ceramic unidirectional rotating bezel are easy to reference the and the zero point is represented by the recognisable diver’s triangular marker. Furthermore, the bezel can only be rotated in a counter-clockwise direction. This gesture ensures diver safety whilst under the water since it cannot be manipulated to extend diving time, only ever reduce it (should it be accidentally knocked). The front of the case is sealed, as mentioned prior, with a hard scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass lens that has undergone layers of anti-reflective treatment to resist glare whilst the wearer references the time on the dial. 

The dial

The new Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze watch has a deep red dial that interacts beautifully with rose gold plated indexes seen across the display. The minute scale around the periphery of the dial is accompanied by chunky Super-LumiNova-coated circular and baton markers framed in the same rose gold colour. This style is matched by thick, lume-coated, partially-skeletonised hour and minute hands made from gilded metal. The central second hand is crafted in the familiar lollipop style and the dial also affords a clear date aperture at 4:30. Simply rotate the easy-to-grip bezel in a counter-clockwise direction under heavy diving gear and align it with the minute hand to ensure you don’t overstay your welcome underwater.

The movement

The Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze Limited Edition uses the BR CAL 302 movement. The engine is also used in the Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Red Radar Limited Edition watch which we recently covered here. It beats at a rate of 28,800 vibrations per hour and delivers a 38-hour power reserve. Based on the Sellita SW 300-1 movement, it comprises 25 jewels and features seconds, minutes, hours and a date function.

The strap:

The Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze is completed on a brown calfskin leather strap with woven rubber and off-white contrast stitching. It secures around the wrist with a satin-finished and polished bronze pin buckle for completing a classic look on the wrist.

To order one of the 999 Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze watches, you can call our sales team on 01335 453 453 or view the watches full spec and online finance options here.

Technical specifications of the Bell & Ross BR 03-92 Diver Red Bronze watch:

• Case: 42mm x 42mm / satin-finished and polished bronze / 300-meter water resistant / stainless steel caseback / scratch resistant and anti glare sapphire crystal glass front
• Dial: deep red / rose gold-plated appliques / Super-Lumi-Nova coated circular and baton hour markers / metal gilded and partially skeletonized Super-LumiNova-coated minute and hour hands / date feature at 4:30
• Movement: BR CAL 302 / 38-hour power reserve / 28,800 v.p.h / 25 jewels / based on the Sellita SW 300-1 / seconds, hours, minutes and date.
• Strap: Brown calfskin leather strap with woven black rubber / satin-brushed  and polished bronze pin buckle / off-white contrast stitching
• Price: £3,800
• Availability: limited to 999 pieces worldwide