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From Dash to Wrist

 

Porsche Design echoes its dashboard clock with a set of chronometers.

To complement the Sport Chrono Porsche Design clock designed for Porsche Panarama and the Porsche Taycan car interior, Porsche Design in the past year introduced a matching the Sport Chrono wristwatch collection.

The line, while not brand new, is impressive. It includes three models that closely match the automotive clock, complete with a small seconds subdial (above), plus one additional model boasting a flyback chronograph.

As with the clock, the operative word is chrono – for chronometer. While only one of the two models is a chronograph, both are officially certified COSC chronometers, with all the enhanced precision that certificate confers.

With its small seconds subdial at six o’clock as on the dashboard timer, the three-hand Sport Chrono Subsecond is 42mm titanium watch offered with either a black, blue or brown dial. Each dial comes with a color-matched rubber strap.

Inside these watches Porsche Design fits its estimable in-house developed Porsche Design caliber WERK 03.200.

The chronograph

While the Sub Second chronometer models feature closed case backs, the chronograph model boasts a clear sapphire case back. This wise choice offers a clear view of Porsche Design’s eye-catching caliber WERK 01.100, with its Porsche-centric P-Icon design.

Other classic Porsche Design features include an anti-reflective sapphire crystal, a leather strap made from Porsche interior leather and a titanium folding clasp with safety push buttons.

Prices: $4,750 (Sport Chrono Subsecond) and $6,150 (automatic chronograph). 

 

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Urwerk and Collective Horology Honor Space Shuttle

Urwerk has teamed with Collective Horology and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum to create a special edition Urwerk UR-100 that pays tribute to Space Shuttle Enterprise on the 40th anniversary of the first Space Shuttle program.

The new Urwerk 100V P.02 allows the viewer to track typical Space Shuttle launch and landing sequences.

The pioneering independent watchmaker has re-designed its existing UR-100 to incorporate color-coded indicators designed to give the viewer the ability to track the Space Shuttle program’s typical launch and landing sequences. These are visible through apertures that also show the approximate location of the Shuttle at each phase of launch and landing.

Thus, on the new titanium and steel-cased Urwerk 100V P.02, green represents the shuttle on Earth. Blue indicates the shuttle traveling through the Earth’s sky or lower atmosphere. Red represents the upper atmosphere and black indicates time in low earth orbit.

Where the standard Urwerk UR-100V tracks the kilometers traveled on the equator in twenty minutes, and the kilometers the earth covered around the sun in the same period, the new edition takes a different approach. It re-configures the dial’s two lateral apertures to track the process and timing of the Space Shuttle’s launch and landing.

Space Base

The partnership is Urwerk’s first collaboration with an organization or individual other than a watchmaker (and one whiskey maker). The joint effort was spurred by life-long admiration for the Space Shuttle and space travel by Urwerk co-founders Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner, and by Asher Rapkin and Gabe Reilly, founders of Collective Horology, a California-based collector group.

“We loved URWERK’s use of orbiting satellite hours and minute hands for the UR-100 SpaceTime launched in 2019, but we saw an opportunity to tell a different story,” says Reilly. He adds that he imagined how Urwerk might create a watch that was a tribute to the Space Shuttle prototype Enterprise.

Collective Horology and Florida-based Goldsmith & Complications, the watch’s official authorized dealer, will donate $50,000 dollars from the proceeds of this project to the Intrepid Museum in New York City.

The new Urwerk UR-100V P.02 is available to existing and new Collective Horology members. This will be a limited edition of twenty pieces. Price: $62,500.

Specifications: Urwerk UR-100V P.02

Movement: Self-winding UR 12.02 movement with the winding rotor governed by a Windfänger airscrew. Materials include satellite hours on beryllium-bronze Geneva crosses; aluminum carousel; carousel and triple baseplates in ARCAP alloy. Forty-eight hour power reserve. Finishing: Circular graining and sanding, shot peening; chamfered screw heads; hours and minutes painted in SuperLumiNova.

Displays: Satellite hours and minutes; space shuttle sequence of events indications.

Case: 41mm by 49.7mm by 14mm titanium and stainless steel with a gun metal PVD finish. Sapphire crystal and thirty meters of water resistance.

Price: $62,500.

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Franck Muller Diver Takes Familiar Shape

The new Franck Muller Skafander integrates a diving theme with a tonneau-shaped case – a combination rarely seen among marine-focused watch designs. Because divers require a unidirectional rotating bezel to assess correct dive time, watches for divers typically utilize a round case built with a round bezel.

Two examples of the new Franck Muller Skafander.

Here, Franck Muller has devised a functional round diver’s bezel, but has placed it inside the Skafander’s large tonneau case, a shape deeply familiar to aficionados of this iconoclastic independent watchmaker. Once set and locked, the Skafander’s dive time is secured with a clearly labeled lock, which insures that the bezel won’t be accidently altered.

While not an officially certified dive watch, the Skafander will retain its water resistance to 100 meters, which allows wearers full, worry-free use while at the beach, boating – or in the pool.

Franck Muller offers the Skafander in a range of case metals, including titanium, steel and rose gold, all with a semi-skeletonized dial that allows a view into the automatic movement below.

Skippers might prefer the highly visible titanium-cased models with blue or yellow accents, or even the blue-accented watch cased in steel. We suspect the boat’s owner, however, might opt to the ritzier rose gold model.  

Price:  CHF 14,800 (about $16,100, for titanium models only).

 

Specifications: Franck Muller Skafander (titanium case edition)

Case: 46mm x 57mm x 15.60mm titanium with black PVD treatment. Water resistant to 100 meters.

Movement: Automatic, offering 42 hours power reserve.

Dial: Unidirectional internal rotating bezel indicating the diving time. Half-openwork movement in the center.

Strap: Blue rubber. More colors available with steel and gold models.

 

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Newest G-Shock MR-G Echoes Samurai Spirit

At the top end of G-Shock’s already premium MR-G series, the new G-Shock  MRGB2000BS3A is a limited-edition ode to a samurai commander spirit known as Hana-Basara. Working from this theme, G-Shock combines a series of ultra-strong materials with hand-worked techniques to create the new titanium-cased MR-G watch.

The new G-Shock  MRGB2000BS3A.

For example, G-Shock uses a titanium alloy called Cobarion to make the bezel on the new watch. The material, which G-Shock says is four-times harder than pure titanium, also features a facet-cutting technique as applied by polishing artisan Kazuhito Komatsu. He polishes the facets with varying angles, leaving a bright finish. His work frames curved indices meant to echo the curvature of a Japanese sword.

Likewise, G-Shock has forged the watch’s titanium case from DAT55G titanium, which is said to be three times harder than pure titanium. On the side of the case you’ll find a brown arc-ion-plated ring set with a commemorative plate engraved with “25th LIMITED” to mark the 25th anniversary of the MR-G line.

Brown arc ion plating is applied to the case along with this commemorative plate.

Samurai colors

The coloring across the watch’s dial and bezel also pay homage to the Hana-Basara. For example, G-Shock echoes the traditional Japanese hue kurogane-iro, or iron color, on the watch’s titanium band and screw-lock case back, paired with a newly developed, dark green DLC finish. G-Shock says that the color resembles the ironclad helmet and armor worn by Basara samurai commanders.

As expected with all MR-G models, G-Shock equips the new MRGB2000BS3A limited edition with its own Tough Solar Power, Super LED Light, Multiband 6 technology and Bluetooth connectivity (via the MR-G Connected app). This connection enables automatic time adjustment, world time displays and many other premium functions.

The new G-Shock MRGB2000BS3A (offered as a limited edition of 400 watches) is priced at $8,000.

 

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Ulysse Nardin Adds Rose Gold Diver Trio

Ulysse Nardin updates its already extensive dive watch collection with three dive models that add rose gold to existing favorites. Two of the updates include a new rose gold bezel atop a steel or a titanium case.  A third debut includes diamonds set in a rose gold bezel atop a 39mm rose gold case.

Diver 42mm Grey and Rose Gold

The new Ulysse Nardin Diver 42mm Grey and Rose Gold.

This latest 42mm steel-cased PVD-satin-finished ‘shark grey’ dive model boasts a 42mm case with nicely contrasting rose gold and gray rubberized, unidirectional rotating, concave bezel.  

Beneath the clearly domed sapphire crystal Ulysse Nardin offers a dial with a contemporary sandblasted finish. Ulysse Nardin has engraved its logo on the solid grey PVD back.

Inside you’ll find a Sellita-based automatic UN-816 movement (outfitted with a silicon escapement wheel and anchor) protected down to 300 meters under water. Finally, Ulysse Nardin secures the watch’s gray alligator strap with a stainless steel grey PVD buckle. Price: $10,400.

The new Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronometer 44mm.

Diver Chronometer 44mm

With a larger (44mm) case, the Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronometer 44mm, with a classic ocean blue dial and blue PVD-coated titanium case, offers a more feature-filled option for nautical adventurers.

Its rose gold unidirectional bezel is appropriately easy to read with gold markers and luminous 0 at the top to mark dive time. The dial, itself well lit with SuperLuminova ands and markers, displays a power reserve indicator at 12 o’clock and a substantial small seconds hand in a subdial at 6 o’clock.

Inside, Ulysse Nardin fits its own Caliber UN-118, which boasts a Diamonsil (a diamond-silicon alloy) escapement wheel and anchor and a silicon balance spring, much of which is visible through a see-through sapphire caseback.

And despite the clear back, Ulysse Nardin assures us that the Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronometer 44mm, like the full Diver Chronometer 44mm collection, is built to withstand up to 300 meters of water pressure. Price: $13,300.

The Ulysse Nardin Caliber UN-118 Manufacture movement.

Lady Diver Rose Gold

Set with forty diamonds, this glittering 39mm watch may be a fashion-forward mother-of-pearl dial watch, but inside it’s all business.

The Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Rose Gold, on an alligator strap.

Within the full rose gold case Ulysse Nardin fits its automatic UN-816 movement, the same one powering the Diver 42mm Grey and Rose Gold described above. That sharp-looking dial glows with eleven diamonds; the white alligator strap is held in place by a rose gold buckle. If you’re sporty, opt for the model with the white rubber strap.  Price: $25,800.

The Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Rose Gold, here on a rubber strap.
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