: It's almost refreshing in a way. Can you imagine what present day
: marketeers would make of the dial colour? We'd have paragraphs
: of florid prose, whereas the attitude in the 70s seemed to be
: more along the lines of "yeah, it's brown".

: I don't know why it wasn't simply translated as "smoke",
: though, it seems more apt than than charcoal.

: Three very different finishes to the dial is the key, even though
: they all get described as "luminous charcoal" in the
: brochures, rather unhelpfully.

: The Silverstone's dial is what Heuer normally means when they
: describe a dial as "luminous", i.e. a radially brushed
: "starburst" finish emanating from the centre of the
: dial.

: The Daytona dial is pretty unique (apart from its blue brother of
: course), with what appears to be an increasing amount of pigment
: as you get closer to the edge of the dial. For me, it's the
: Daytona dial where the name "fumé" makes most sense
: because it really does look smoked.

: The Carrera's dial has a "Côte de Geneves" finish (i.e.
: "Coast of Geneva") - I believe the name is supposed to
: evoke waves lapping on the shore of Lake Geneva, and that
: description really works (though you might hope the water of
: Lake Geneva is closer to the blue dial than the brown one!).
: It's a really three-dimensional dial and the play of light over
: it is fascinating.

: So all different, all interesting and all probably overdue a
: renaissance now that chocolate dials seem to be experiencing
: more popularity of late, I agree.