Time to Drive

Millions in Cars and Watches Coupled with Organizational Lunacy

Take Miami's Mana Wynwood, plaster the surrounding parking lots with $40 Million in exotic cars, fill the inside with even more expensive cars and add on 50 luxury watch brands and you have the inaugural edition of Time to Drive.

The only problem was, nobody set their watch(s)

When going to a luxury event such as this, one expects extraordinary products, interesting people, impeccable presentations, and perhaps a glass of Champagne that doesn't require standing in line for 20 minutes.

What one doesn't expect is to receive an email 90 minutes before the doors open, telling you to arrive 60-90 minutes later and to enjoy the outside displays in 85 degree heat. You have to wonder whether the organizers had confused opening day with construction day.

Welcome to Time to Drive, the Robb Report-sponsored gathering at Miami's Mana Wynwood, where the watches were magnificent, the cars were breathtaking, and the organization occasionally resembled a high school science fair being assembled during lunch.

Let's start with the good stuff. And there was plenty.

More than 50 watch brands brought their mechanical masterpieces to Miami. Brand presidents, executives, influencers, YouTubers, collectors, enthusiasts, and assorted luxury-world personalities filled the venue. Outside, millions of dollars' worth of Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and other automotive exotica created a spectacular playground for anyone who appreciates fine machinery.

Thousands attended. The energy was infectious. The concept was brilliant. Watch Club Founders, Youtube hosts with recognizable faces and big personalities, cars that you may never be this close to and timepieces that went from $599 to $5 Million, were all incorporated in a massive C-hall with live music, lounges and plenty to talk about.

The execution? Well, apparently someone forgot to wind the clock.

The opening was delayed. Construction and setup activity continued in the midst of displays, creating the peculiar sensation of attending an event that wasn't entirely convinced it had actually begun.

Scheduled panels seemed to operate on something resembling Italian railway time. You knew they were supposed to happen. Exactly when was apparently a matter of interpretation. The 'swag' pop-up was actually still under construction 3 hrs into the event. Watch brands and retailers with literally millions of dollars in fine timepieces were unboxing portable safes and setting up glass display booths as the general public strolled through the bins and boxes.

When you're gathering prestigious watch manufacturers, luxury automotive brands, international executives, serious collectors, and thousands of visitors, logistics aren't a minor detail. They're the entire foundation of the experience.

Like the super tuned Porsche's, slick styled Lambrogini's and highly engineered Ferrari's, luxury is about precision. Particularly when you're selling watches that celebrate tolerances measured in fractions of a millimeter and automobiles engineered to perform at 200 miles per hour.

Having the event schedule run like a broken Swatch is, shall we say, rather ironic.

To be fair, Time to Drive has all the ingredients to become a significant fixture on the American luxury calendar. The audience is there. The brands are there. The enthusiasm is unmistakable. And Miami is an ideal stage for this wonderfully excessive combination of horsepower and horology.

But great events aren't simply collections of expensive things gathered under one roof. They're carefully choreographed experiences.

When a $300,000 watch is displayed a few feet from someone still assembling the scenery, something has gone terribly wrong with the choreography.

Time to Drive deserves another lap.

Next time, perhaps the organizers should arrive a day earlier. And bring a watch that works.