THE HOURS BETWEEN THE MILES
A WORN & DRIVEN MORNING AT MINUTES + HOURS LOS ANGELES
By Izu Okpara
McLaren Artura, driven by Jonathan Matos, Marketing Manager at McLaren Newport Beach.
Some events begin when the doors open. This one began miles earlier.
On a Saturday morning in Southern California, WORN & DRIVEN members and invited guests gathered at McLaren Newport Beach, the Official Automotive Sponsor of the event, before setting out together for Manhattan Beach and the Los Angeles edition of Minutes + Hours.
With a McLaren Artura and a 750S among the cars, the morning started the way these mornings usually do: in motion.
Cars and watches are compared so often that the analogy can become predictable. Both celebrate engineering. Both reward precision. Both can turn mechanical necessity into design. And both have a peculiar ability to transform otherwise rational adults into collectors.
All of that is true.
But somewhere between Newport Beach and Manhattan Beach, it became clear the real connection between these two worlds isn't mechanical. It's the people.
The cars gave us a reason to gather before the destination. Conversations began in the showroom and continued beside the cars as the group assembled. Then the engines started, the formation took shape, and what had been a gathering became a convoy.
Ahead was Westdrift Manhattan Beach and Minutes + Hours Los Angeles.
MORE THAN A DESTINATION
Minutes + Hours has its own history in Southern California.
Its first Los Angeles watch show was held in April 2019 under the LAmicroLUX name, bringing hundreds of enthusiasts together with 24 boutique watch brands. In the years since, the concept has expanded beyond its original microbrand roots, hosting events in Los Angeles, Chicago and Austin while bringing independent makers and more established manufacturers into the same environment.
For the August 2026 Los Angeles edition, more than 70 brands gathered at Westdrift Manhattan Beach for two days devoted to watches, their makers and the people who collect them.
Saturday also included something more specific: a WORN & DRIVEN Private VIP Preview Experience presented by Junghans and McLaren Newport Beach.
Our arrival at the hotel wasn't really the end of the drive. It was the start of the second half of the morning.
People gathered outside and around the lobby before moving toward the private breakfast area. Some faces were familiar. Others weren't. Fast Lane Drive members mixed naturally with WORN & DRIVEN members, friends and invited guests.
Once everyone reached the same table, none of that mattered much.
Alexander Cartigan addressing the group during breakfast.
WORN & DRIVEN Founder Alexander Cartigan addressed the group as breakfast began, putting some context around what the morning represented.
This wasn't a traditional cars-and-coffee gathering with watches added as decoration. Nor was it simply a watch exhibition preceded by an interesting drive.
The idea was to let both worlds exist side by side naturally. That showed at the breakfast tables.
People began doing what watch enthusiasts inevitably do when seated together: looking at one another's wrists.
Watches came off. Others went on. Questions were asked. References were compared. Someone noticed a dial from across the table. Another person passed a watch around.
There was no requirement that anyone collect the same thing.
That's one of the better things about watch culture. A table can have completely different manufacturers, complications and price points, and every one of them is still a reason to start a conversation.
THE OTHER HALF OF WORN & DRIVEN
Junghans served as the Official Watch Sponsor for the morning, a shift from engines to movements after we'd spent the first part of the day surrounded by McLarens.
Olivier Zaugg, CEO of Junghans USA, addressed the gathering and spoke to guests as the morning turned from cars to watches.
Olivier Zaugg, CEO of Junghans USA, speaking with the group during breakfast.
It made sense as a transition, and nobody pretended cars and watches were the same thing.
A watch movement is not an engine. A chronograph is not a sports car.
The appeal isn't that they're the same. It's that they tend to attract the same kind of person: someone who cares about details most people don't notice.
Case proportions, the resistance of a pusher, the shape of a lug. Small things, but the kind that matter to the right person.
Same with cars: the weight of a steering wheel, how a throttle responds, the line of a fender.
Someone cared enough to get those details right, and that's part of why they matter.
A green-dial Junghans, one of the pieces up for raffle that morning.
Junghans also put a few pieces into the morning's raffle. Nothing was sitting behind glass. People were actually trying watches on and handling them. That makes a difference.
For all the photography and spec sheets available online, watches are still physical objects. Photos tell you whether you like the look. They don't tell you how something feels on your wrist.
Breakfast continued over champagne and conversation, with the occasional wrist check.
It was relaxed, and that felt right. WORN & DRIVEN is still new, and mornings like this are helping define what it becomes.
BEFORE THE DOORS OPENED
After breakfast, WORN & DRIVEN members and invited guests entered Minutes + Hours for a private viewing period before the show opened to the wider public. That extra hour made a difference.
Instead of pushing through a crowded exhibition hall, there was time to stop, ask questions, handle unfamiliar watches, and talk to the people who made them, including brands we might have walked past otherwise.
That accessibility has been part of Minutes + Hours from its beginnings. The show grew from an event centered around independent and microbrand watchmaking into one where established manufacturers and smaller makers can occupy the same room.
For collectors, that creates something increasingly valuable: discovery.
Part of the morning was simply getting there.
That also explains why the drive at the start of the morning didn't feel disconnected from where we ended up. A lot of collectors don't stick to one category.
Someone into the engineering behind a McLaren might just as easily be into how a movement is built, and the other way around.
WORN & DRIVEN is really just a place for that overlap to happen.
By the time the public entered Minutes + Hours, the atmosphere changed.
The rooms became busier. Conversations became shorter. More wrists appeared. The private gathering gradually blended into the larger show, and people started moving through on their own before eventually heading out. It wasn't a hard transition. The morning just became afternoon.
WHAT REMAINS
The photos tell the story better than an itinerary does. There are McLarens moving through Southern California. There are watches shot close enough to see the texture of the dials.
There are people speaking, glasses raised, groups around tables. But some of the best photos from the morning don't have any of that in them. They're just wrists.
Comparing watches is half the fun.
Two people comparing watches. Four people reaching toward the center of a table.
Different manufacturers. Different designs. Different reasons for choosing what each person chose to wear that morning.
It's easy to talk about cars and watches purely as objects, but a car matters because of where it takes you and who's in it with you.
A watch picks up meaning in a different way, worn through trips, dinners, ordinary Tuesdays, and moments that only matter in hindsight.
Maybe that's why cars and watches go together so easily. Both end up being ways of remembering things.
By the time the public began filtering through Minutes + Hours and our gathering slowly dispersed, the McLarens were parked, the speeches were finished and the watches had returned to their wrists.
Yet something about the morning remained.
We had arrived because of cars.
We had gathered around watches.
But looking back at the photographs, neither seems to be the real subject.
The machines brought us together.
The timepieces marked the moment.
The people were the story.
Event Recognitions
Jonathan Matos– Marketing Manager at McLaren Newport Beach
Olivier Zaugg – CEO, Junghans USA
Rich Park – Founder of Minutes + Hours
Alexander Cartigan – Founder of WORN & DRIVEN
McLaren Newport Beach – Official Automotive Sponsor
Junghans – Official Watch Sponsor
Minutes + Hours Watch Show – Event Partner
Media:
Brianna - Photographer
Stanislav Lohvynovskyi - Videographer
Josh Joyner - Videographer
Tanner Lyons - Photographer