Try this visual exercise. Close your eyes and imagine in front of you a rectangle, just about the size of a post stamp. Or if you’re too young to know what a post stamp is, an SD card. Short edge on top, longer edge on the sides. Now take the longer edges, add some thickness to these and lengthen them by half a centimetre on either end. At this point, if we were to ask you to fill the space in the middle with the hands of a watch and a minute track, there is a high chance that what you have assembled would resemble the face of the Cartier Tank.
These elemental design characteristics of the Tank were first laid out by Louis Cartier some 104 years ago, in 1917. His point of inspiration was an object far larger and, curiously, an object of war. The fundamental form of the Cartier Tank is taken from the top view of a tank, with the brancards being the treads and the case representing the cockpit of the vehicle. But although the timepiece was modelled after a destructive weapon of
