Automotive Photographer & Canon Explorer of Light
Larry Chen's Heat Wave x Nixon Time Teller: Car Culture on the Wrist
The man who has spent 20+ years photographing Formula Drift, Pikes Peak, Gymkhana, and every corner of grassroots car culture on the planet is wearing a watch built for people who grew up around orange gauge clusters and warm dashboard glow. The Heat Wave x Nixon Time Teller is a limited-edition collaboration that makes complete sense on Larry Chen's wrist — and almost no sense on anyone else's. In the best possible way.
| Larry Chen — Heat Wave x Nixon Time Teller. Source: Jay Leno's Garage / YouTube |
Nixon x HWV Time Teller — tonal grid dial, fluorescent orange markings, debossed silicone band |
▶ Spotted: Larry Chen interviews Jay Leno for Hagerty — YouTube
Larry Chen has been photographing cars in motion for over 20 years — first through Speedhunters, which introduced his work to the global import and performance car community, and then through an expanding body of work that has taken him to every corner of the automotive world. He has documented the Gymkhana series with Ken Block and Hoonigan from its earliest runs, shot Formula Drift events across the country, covered Pikes Peak, and embedded himself in grassroots car culture in a way that most commercial photographers never attempt. The result is a visual record of car culture from the inside — not the motor show or the press launch, but the paddock, the staging area, the gravel trap, and the faces of the people who show up regardless of whether there is a camera present.
He is a Canon Explorer of Light — a programme that invites working photographers whose technique and vision demonstrate what the equipment is actually capable of. His 2025 book Life at Shutter Speed documents his career and the philosophy behind it. He collaborates with brands including Heat Wave Visual, which has become one of the most culturally fluent brands in automotive lifestyle — their sunglasses show up at every major car event because they understand how car culture dresses, what it references, and why it matters. When Heat Wave Visual decided to make a watch, they called Nixon. When they needed people to wear it authentically, they didn't need to look far.
"A retro future design inspired by the iconic gauges of yesteryear — the markings are emblazoned in fluorescent orange to mimic the warm glow emitted from iconic dashboards of the 80s and 90s." — Heat Wave Visual, on the Nixon x HWV Time Teller
Timepiece
Heat Wave Visual x Nixon Time Teller — Limited Edition
Nixon was founded in 1997 in Encinitas, California, and built its reputation in surf and action sports before expanding into the broader lifestyle market. The Time Teller — a clean, minimal, 37–40mm quartz watch on a stainless steel or silicone band — became the brand's best-selling platform: accessible, versatile, and designed to take colour and collaboration without losing its essential character. It is the watch that a generation of action sports, skateboarding, and car culture enthusiasts grew up wearing.
Heat Wave Visual is a California-based car culture and lifestyle brand, most recognized for its sunglasses, that has established itself as one of the more credible brand voices in the automotive enthusiast space — not through automotive sponsorship in the traditional sense, but through genuine cultural fluency. They show up at the right events, collaborate with the right people, and build products that look like they were designed by people who have actually sat in those cars.
The Nixon x HWV Time Teller uses Nixon's 40mm Time Teller platform and redesigns it entirely around the aesthetic of analogue automotive instrumentation. The dial features a tonal grid engraving — a pattern that recalls the backlit gauge clusters of 1980s and 1990s Japanese sports cars and American muscle. The hour markers and hands are finished in fluorescent orange, referencing the warm incandescent glow of analogue dashboards before digital displays became standard. The Heat Wave icon appears at 12 o'clock. The case is stainless steel; the band is a debossed silicone strap with the Nixon and Heat Wave logos on opposing sides. It launched in late 2025, with its highest-profile retail moment during a Black Friday drop.
| Platform | Nixon Time Teller — 40mm stainless steel case |
| Dial | Tonal grid engraving — fluorescent orange markings and hands |
| 12 O'Clock | Heat Wave Visual icon |
| Band | Debossed silicone — Nixon and Heat Wave logos on opposing sides |
| Water Resistance | 100m / 10 ATM |
| Design Reference | 1980s–90s automotive gauge clusters and dashboard instrumentation |
| Release | Limited edition — late 2025 (Black Friday drop) |
The Right Watch in the Right Room
The context matters here. Larry Chen was at Jay Leno's Garage for a Hagerty interview — the same garage that houses a 1906 Stanley Steamer, a McLaren F1, a working tank, and a platinum A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Perpetual Calendar on the wrist of the host. Two people with a deep relationship to machines, wearing very different watches that both make complete sense for who they are. Leno's Lange is the watch of a man who has been building a collection through 22 years of disciplined saving and who wants to understand every component. Chen's Heat Wave Nixon is the watch of a man who has spent 20 years inside the culture that watch was designed for — not collecting it from the outside, but living in it.
Heat Wave Visual's copy for the watch says: "No special release times, no lucky order numbers. Just a watch that you can get for yourself, or someone you care about, to tell the time on your wrist." That is a very deliberate statement about what this watch is not — it is not a trophy, not a status signal, not a collector's object. It is a piece of car culture wearables that happens to track hours and minutes. On the wrist of a photographer who has documented car culture for two decades and collaborates with the brand that made it, it lands exactly the way it was supposed to.
And at Spot.Watch — that's always worth noticing.
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