Hublot Unveils New Range Of Big Bang Ferrari Chronographs

Hublot began its partnership with Ferrari four years ago, in 2012. The partnership began with a Big Bang, so to speak – one of the first of Hublot’s watches to feature its proprietary scratch-proof “magic gold’ compound. Since then, we have had the spectacular, over-the-top and then some, Hublot MP-05 LaFerrari replica watch– a cobra-headed watch boasting a colossal power reserve (much like its namesake, of course).

And that, watch-wise, was pretty much that. The LaFerrari got a full-body sapphire re-working at the start of 2016 (paving the way for the Big Bang Unico Sapphire), but the bulk of Hublot’s work with Ferrari came across in the “brand synergies” much beloved of boss Jean-Claude Biver – marketing opportunities to closer align two pretty well-matched sets of high net worth clienteles.

That’s not to denigrate the MP-05 LaFerrari – it’s an accomplished piece of engineering, if extremely large – but there wasn’t much for the sub-six-figure watch buyer to work with. Now that’s all changed, as Hublot releases three variants of a re-worked Big Bang Ferrari, in King Gold, carbon fibre and titanium. These watches have benefited greatly from the four years that Hublot and Ferrari have had to get to know each other; QP was invited out to Maranello to hear from Ferrari’s head of design, Flavio Manzoni, just how much progress has been made.

To begin with, we have to admit a lot of “watch brand meets car brand” clichés seemed ready to rear their heads. If we had a pound for every time we’d heard the old lines about “motorsport-influenced design”, which usually boil down to a few red details on the dial and a tyre-grooved rubber strap, we’d have nearly enough money for a TW Steel. But there were a few signs that this would be different.

For a start, Mr Manzoni was enormously candid (by such standards) about the previous Big Bang Ferrari. “The previous watch was a “Ferrari version” – just a watch with a logo on the dial”, he admitted. “This is something much more, something where it was possible to intervene in the design.”

And intervene he did. When we’re told that “every detail of the watch was refined in Maranello”, an innate cynicism does start to creep in, but as he reeled off instance after instance it crept quietly out again. The hands have been redesigned, as well as the indices and numbers. The chronograph counter uses the same Ferrari font from the rev counter. The shape of the bezel, the crown, the pushers and the bulge in the centre of the case have all benefited from work from Ferrari’s design studio.

It goes on. The radial design of the numerals and indices echo the spokes of alloy wheels, as does the openworked shape of the small-seconds counter and the rotor on the rear. As well as generic Ferrari influences, certain touches are drawn from specific recent Ferraris, for instance the stripe down the side of the case is linked to the racing stripe found down the centre of the 458 Speciale. The indents for the H-screws on the bezel have a strong similarity with the rear diffuser found on a LaFerrari or F12 TDF.

When asked how the collaboration works, Manzoni hints at a much wider-reaching set of influences than just pure automotive aerodynamics. “Of course, watch design is a world away, but there are similarities. We welcome the occasion to use a multi-discipline design process, which was fantastic, a breath of fresh air. In itself, that’s not new for Ferrari – we often invite people to Maranello, from architects like Zaha Hadid, to artists and musicians. That’s just part of our design process; cross-contamination of different experiences is welcomed. In Hublot, we feel another brand with our philosophy; We are currently working on other design projects with Hublot, in which Ferrari is heavily involved.”

He also showed an appropriate reverence for the watch movement itself, and laughed in mock horror when he realised that moving the Cavallino – the official term for the prancing horse logo – from 9 o’clock to 6 o’clock had obscured the chronograph’s column wheel. He even went so far as to entertain the possibility that design inspiration to flow the other way, from watch to car: “A watch would not inspire a car’s bodywork, but aspects of a watch could contribute to details of the engine bay, the dashboard, the instrumentation and interior.”

So what is the watch actually like? Well, it’s a Big Bang Ferrari so it’s no shrinking violet. It has been visibly re-worked – the lines along the caseband, the bezel, the openworked dial all genuinely do show signs of proper thought. And there are nice touches to the watch in the hand – the crown snaps into place when you line up that “racing stripe”, for example – and on a tactile level, all three feel sufficiently different and engaging in their own way. Most impressive of all, in fact, is the actuation of the chronograph movement; slightly redesigned rocking pushers have been added which, although potentially a little large for some, offer absolutely the smoothest action I’ve encountered in a long time – certainly in anything priced below the level of a Patek or a Lange. There’s barely a snick as you start, stop, re-set.

Stopping off at the Ferrari gift shop made this point abundantly – the chasm between the judgement, elegance and poise of the cars and the heavy-handed “slap a logo on it” mentality of Ferrari merchandise is vast. Thankfully, the effort put into these watches moves them a lot closer to the former than the latter.

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