Monaco is never short of noise. Supercars echo along the coastline, engines clear their throats in the tunnels, and the harbour buzzes with the usual blend of money, movement and spectacle. Yet for all of that, one of the most intriguing stories heading into Top Marques Monaco 2026 is about sound of a very different sort. Not exhaust notes or electric motors, but bells. Centuries of them.
Top Marques has become a familiar stop on the automotive calendar. The Grimaldi Forum fills each year with the kind of machinery that makes even jaded collectors pause for a second look. Modern performance cars sit beside rare classics, while everything from motorbikes to boats creates a kind of rolling theatre. In recent years, the show has grown its lifestyle side as well, carving out space for watches and jewellery that feel at home among the polished bodywork. For 2026 that area expands even further, and it is here that a new name will be introduced to the world.
Van Bergen 1795, a company that traces its story back more than two centuries to a bell foundry in the Netherlands, will use Monaco for its first appearance in the world of watches. It might sound like an unlikely leap, although once you look closer it begins to make sense. The Van Bergen family spent generations mastering the acoustic science behind carillons and tower clocks. Their bells hang in churches, civic buildings and landmarks around the world, including commissions once given by John D. Rockefeller and the Netherlands Carillon at Arlington National Cemetery. They built instruments that were meant to fill whole towns with sound, shaped from bronze with tolerances so fine that one imperfect curve could dull a note. For a long time, that skill defined them.
By 1980 the foundry cast its final bell. The world had changed and the family’s chapter as bellmakers came to an end. What did not fade was the obsession with precision and sound. That responsibility eventually passed to Baron Rudolph Andries Ulrich Juchter van Bergen Quast, grandson of the final master bellmaker, and to Erik Meijer, a classical percussionist trained in Rotterdam and The Hague. Together they set out to reimagine the family heritage in a form that still honoured its history. Instead of towers and bronze, they turned to watchmaking.
Which brings us back to Monaco. The company’s first pieces, collected under the name The Heero Collection, will debut during the 2026 edition in the expanded Watch and Jewellery Pavilion. The link to the past is deliberately clear. Each watch features a half hour sonnerie au passage, a gentle chime that marks the passing of time in the same spirit as the bells the family spent 230 years shaping. Meijer has said before that a Van Bergen without sound would lack its soul, and even if you strip away the romance of that statement, there is something quietly bold about a brand defining itself through a complication that most modern makers treat as a flourish.
There is a ceremonial element to the launch too. The company has created a Monaco Edition of the watch, the first of which will be presented to H.S.H. Prince Albert II. A second will be auctioned to support the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation, adding a philanthropic note to proceedings. Beyond those unique pieces, the initial production run totals 230 watches, one for each year since the family story began. Five dial colours will be available, while the Monaco Edition will come in titanium and white gold.
Top Marques itself should provide an almost theatrical backdrop. Walk through its halls and the contrast is striking. V12s, sculpted carbon fibre, electric hypercars, restored legends and now, tucked among them, a small stand sharing the quieter history of bells and watchmaking. The director of the show has described Van Bergen’s arrival as a reflection of the event’s character, where engineering tradition and contemporary craft can sit side by side. In a place known for spectacle, the idea of a watch chiming softly every thirty minutes feels almost rebellious.
Yet that is also why this launch stands out. Rather than trying to outshine the cars around it, the story works because it does the opposite. It slows everything down. It looks backwards as much as forwards. It does not chase trends but returns to something older and more patient, where sound is not a gimmick but a language.
And perhaps that is why Monaco is the right stage. For all its speed and theatrics, the Principality has always understood ceremony. The arrival of a timepiece drawn from the discipline of bell making fits that instinct surprisingly well. In a hall filled with noise, it brings a reminder of the value of silence. Or at least, the value of something softer than a rev limiter.
