Talking Watches: With Jonathan Ward
Watch lovers come in all forms – whether it be news photographers turned Spanish-language talk show hosts, late 1990s hip hop stars, or just all around cool guys. Another form a watch lover might take could be that of Jonathan Ward, founder of Icon 4×4. For those who aren’t familiar, Icon just might be making the most advanced and best all around SUV’s on planet earth. This isn’t us saying that, it’s a well known fact.
Jonathan Ward’s Icon 4×4’s are built from the ground up, keeping the vintage styling that we all love so much in the early Ford Broncos and Toyota FJ’s, but now they are carbon coated, and feature absolutely cutting-edge technology. Icon makes just a handful of trucks per year – now with a waiting list over around three years for a new order – and they have become something of a calling card for those in the know. In off-roading circles, Jonathan Ward is a hero, but what many may not know is that many of the designs and materials you see in these incredible six-figure trucks actually come from Jonathan’s watch obsession. This is your official HODINKEE Talking Watches with Icon 4×4’s Jonathan Ward.
Jonathan isn’t like most of our other guests on Talking Watches in that he’s not reference number obsessed. He doesn’t live and die by Rolex or Patek, and frankly, he likes what he likes and doesn’t care what anybody else thinks. But that doesn’t make him any less of a watch lover than the rest of us, and in fact, there is a certain beauty in his ability to say, “I like this because I like it, and that’s all that matters.” It is this singular approach by which Icon has been built – he knows his trucks are over the top, expensive, and not to everyone’s taste, but they are his, and he isn’t forcing anyone to buy one.
His watch collection is much the same way – particular, function focused, with an eye on materials. In fact, Jonathan says that he was even a watch-obsessive before he was a car-obsessive, and in speaking with him for just a few moments, you know he isn’t lying.
The coating on Ward’s Vector, for example? That is what inspired what you now see on the …read more
