Seven magnificent timepieces inspired by heroes who lived life in the fast lane .

Racing drivers, aviators, explorers, bon viveurs, pioneers of politics and industry… Some wear suits, some wear helmets, some wear flame-retardant overalls or a parachute. So what binds these speed fiends and go-getters? They all wear a Swiss watch – its movement a marvel of speed in itself, ticking at a breakneck 28,800 vibrations per hour, the equivalent of a performance car running full pelt, 24 hours a day.

A proper watch is a fail-safe mechanical instrument for a man of action. It can be used to monitor fuel usage at a glance, lap times with a simple push of a button, even double as a compass when the GPS drops out on the side of a mountain.

Given such illustrious users, watches can even become famous in their own right. Omega’s Speedmaster is renowned as the only bit of non-NASA-developed equipment permitted on board any of the agency’s spacecraft. A Rolex Submariner is often found on the wrists of Secret Service agents, not just because it’s arguably the world’s best all-rounder timepiece, but also a pan-culturally recognised commodity, a useful bargaining tool in an emergency.

Then there are those that have become attached to particular heroic personalities. The superstars of the watch world, if you will. Here, we take our look at the dynamic men whose success in the field made the watches they wore truly deserving of the word “icon”.

In 1909, London’s Daily Mail newspaper offered a £1,000 prize for the first man to fly the English Channel in a heavier-than-air, powered aircraft. That man was Mr Louis Blériot, a French inventor, engineer and pioneer aviator. Having taken off from Calais at 4.41am in his own Type XI monoplane, he was soon flying blind in dense fog. But then the white cliffs of Dover came into view and he cut his engine at 20m, making a hefty pancake landing on a hillside. The Zenith watch on his wrist told him the flight had taken 36 minutes and 30 seconds. Zenith’s flying credentials were duly cemented in history, with the current collection’s Pilot Type 20 range designed in Mr Blériot’s honour.

Mention the Rolex vs Smiths Everest debate on online watch forums, and sparks will fly. Here’s what we know: on 29 May 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa, Mr Tenzing Norgay, were the first to reach Mount Everest’s 8,848m peak. Sir Edmund managed something else extraordinary: he had two competing watch brands bankroll the expedition. Rolex was the most heavily publicised, and Mr Norgay was dutifully wearing his Oyster Perpetual as he stepped onto the top of the world, eventually inspiring 1972’s now immortal Explorer model. Sir Edmund apparently wore his Smiths Deluxe. “I carried your watch to the summit. It worked perfectly,” he reportedly told Smiths. Nevertheless, the Rolex Explorer has stood the test of time as a handsome and collectable testament to adventure.

It’s 1969, and 240,000 spectators at the 24 Hours of Le Mans are on the edge of their seats, waiting for the drivers to take theirs. As was standard practice at the time, when the starter’s flag dropped, every driver sprinted across the track to his car. All except one. To protest against the sprint start after it had contributed to a recent death, Belgian outsider Mr Jacky Ickx chose instead to stroll to his Ford GT40. He slowly, deliberately put on his seat belt, and started the race last. Twenty-four hours later, Mr Ickx won the race by the narrowest margin in its history (a mere 120m). He succeeded in modifying the start to a seated grid, then went on to win Le Mans a further five times. It’s no wonder this gentleman of motor racing is still a close friend of his one-time sponsor Chopard, whose Superfast Chrono Porsche 919 Jacky Ickx Edition pays homage to the driver’s ensuing career with Porsche.

On 31 July 1944, the International Watch Company’s latter-day muse, Mr Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, took off on what was scheduled to be his last reconnaissance flight in a Lockheed P-38 Lightning, heading for Grenoble. He never returned. Fifty years later, parts of his plane were discovered on the Mediterranean seabed. At the very least, Mr Saint-Exupéry died doing what he loved the most: flying, against the odds, for the good of others, a passion that leaps from the page of the adventurer’s classic novel, Night Flight (1931), which recounts his dicey years as a night-mail pilot in Argentina. Seventy years on, he has been honoured by three tobacco-brown special editions of IWC’s classic, the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph.

The “Rake of the Riviera” was the original playboy magnate of the 1970s, a flamboyantly dressed Italian industrialist who, as the head of Fiat, was almost as influential in fashion as he was in business. For better or worse, Mr Gianni Agnelli can also be credited with “pioneering” the watch-over-cuff affectation, since adapted by brands such as Mr Flavio Briatore’s Euro-bling label, Billionaire Couture, with its “porthole” French cuffs. Unlike the rest of his style, Mr Agnelli’s showy wristwear could be hit and miss, but a definite hit was the unashamedly chunky Omega Seamaster PloProf diving watch, whose garish orange rubber strap was the perfect dash of eccentricity for this particular peacock.

After Mr Yuri Gagarin narrowly beat the Americans to space in his Vostok 1 spacecraft in 1961, the Space Race and NASA’s Mercury programme ramped up a gear. When it came to the Aurora 7 orbital mission of 1962, piloted by lantern-jawed Lt Commander Scott Carpenter (the inspiration for Thunderbirds’ Scott Tracey), a small but crucial consideration was what would be strapped to his wrist. The winning design was one already on the market – Omega’s fabled Speedmaster Moonwatch – but that didn’t stop Mr Carpenter first trying out pilot-watch icon the Breitling Navitimer. His slide-rule chronograph was souped up with a 24-hour scale, allowing him to distinguish between night and day in the topsy-turvy environment of space. This proved significant for Breitling, inspiring the 24-hour-dial Cosmonaute – now a permanent part of its Navitimer collection.

TAG Heuer’s pedigree in motorsport began in the early 1960s and owes much to the family firm’s then 20-something boy wonder, Mr Jack Heuer. While providing timing equipment for all manner of Formulae, he was developing his round Carrera, square Monaco and egg-shaped Autavia on the side – classic driver’s watches that speak vividly of his days in every pit lane from Indianapolis to Silverstone. But Mr Heuer couldn’t have achieved half of his F1 endorsements without the help of another Swiss gentleman, the Lotus privateer racer Mr Jo “Seppi” Siffert. He bought watches wholesale from Mr Heuer and made a decent sideline selling them to his fellow drivers. He cut quite a dash, too. Mr Steve McQueen based his character in Le Mans (1971) on Mr Siffert, watches and all. Mr McQueen’s famous choice might have been the blue-dial Monaco, but Mr Siffert stuck faithfully to his white-dial Autavia.