The Breitling Watch Blog

Among many others.. including IWC, Kobold and Omega. Very cool.

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin has been lighting up the WWE stage for years before he retired in 2000, and began collecting watches after his wrestling career took off. His main article is featured in this month’s WatchTime Magazine. Some of the watches in his collection include: IWC Aquatimer, Zenith Defy, Rolex Yachtmaster, Omega Seamaster 300m Chronodiver, Kobold Arctic Diver, IWC Big Pilot and a Breitling Super Avenger Blacksteel. He’s planning to add a Panerai to the collection soon.

I highly recommend the article in WatchTime magazine as he seems like a very cool guy and the article is a good read. I was never a huge wrestling fan, but this is good stuff.

While most automobile brands that associate themselves with watch brands tend to be exclusive in their partnerships, Mercedes seems to suprise with every new watch venture they embark on. Some of the brands that Mercedes has associated themselves with: IWC, Graham, Tag Heuer, Fabien Cacheux, Ulysse Nardin, and their own Brand created with Tourneau. There are very possibly others that I have missed too!

Most recently is the addition of Graham to the mix to celebrate the Mercedes GP Petronas Formula 1 Team. The Mercedes watch they introduced is kind of ugly in my opinion. Designed more in the style of Graham than Mercedes, and features lots of discord with the mix of design elements making a watch that is overall not too tasteful.

While Mercedes has chosen to associate themselves with so many brands, they have for the most part made tasteful watches. However, unlike Ferrari by Panerai and Breitling for Bentley, the watches have very little association with each other.

Personally, I think the most successful and tasteful Automobile and Watch team-ups would be Breitling for Bentley and Jaeger LeCoultre and Aston Martin. The most Epic Fail Automobile Watch brand would be Tonino Lamborghini. Why would you license your brand out to a company that cannot market your product properly? Didn’t the 80′s and 90′s teach companies anything about licensing your brand – now we see Tonino Lamborghini products fill the shelves in discount stores and ebay.

Here is a gallery of some of the Mercedes collaboration watches out there:

Woo! I love this new Portuguese from IWC.

Beautiful thicker 45.5mm Case, with 14.5mm Thickness. Sapphire Crystals front and back, with a 60m Water Resistance. The sapphire back gives a beautiful view of the IWC Caliber 89360 with pellaton winding system, and finally a Date on the Portuguese! Only thing I’m not sure about is the Rubber strap, red second hand and Yacht Club written on the dial.

The IWC caliber 89360 is designed completely in-house with 40 jewels and a 68 hour power reserve. The Caliber 89360 puts the hours and seconds counters for the chronograph on a single subdial at 12 o’clock for easier reading. Date is at 3 o’clock

IWC has released their newly re-designed Aquatimer in a solid Rose Gold version, and it looks stunning. While not a fan of the new Steel Aquatimer, I really like this rose gold offering, with their in house IWC Caliber 89360 movement. This is the superb movement used in the Da Vinci Chronograph which features IWC’s signature Pelaton Winding system, and Chronograph hour and minute counters both on the subdial at 12 o’clock. Chronograph second counter is central, and second dial for the time is located at 6 o’clock.

Beautiful display back shows off the nicely finished movement and pelaton winding system. The watch measures a healthy 44mm in diameter and 15.5mm thickness.

IWC opened the doors to it’s new Flagship Boutique in Hong Kong on June 1st, 2009. This state of the art showroom is absolutely amazing inside. And they say the luxury goods industry is in turmoil…

The Boutique will carry all the standard collections as well as some limited exclusive timepieces available only at the boutique. This is IWC’s first Flagship store, and joins many other prestigious luxury brands at 1881 Heritage, the location of the boutique. The store extends to over 200 metres, which is around 2000 square feet.

Finally got a video review of my IWC AMG Ingenieur up. This is my favourite travel and all-purpose watch. It does not draw any attention and looks great. The only complaint that I have is possibly that it looks too sporty with a suit and the dark grey of the titanium is a bit clashing with most other types of jewelry such as wedding rings, etc. However, it does make an excellent sports watch and while being made of titanium, still weighs a big more than most Titanium watches that I’ve owned.

Driver8 did a fantastic review of his beautiful and popular IWC Big Pilot watch. This is one of the IWC’s that utilize their 5000 series movements with the 7 day power reserve. The movement is a beautiful work of art with a nice gold medallion inserted on the rotor, and uses IWC’s proprietary Pellaton Winding system that was developed in the late 40′s by Albert Pellaton. The watch measures an imposing 46.2mm, and calls back the days of yore in WWII when pilots wore these watches. The watch also uses a faraday cage to protect the movement from magnetic influences.

Beautiful watch, and Driver8′s review is top notch. Check it out:

See the IWC Big Pilot review here on the forum

Again, IWC has secured the top ranking of luxury watch brands performed by the LBSI. The index measures the value and equity of luxury brands across North America, using data collected by wealthy American consumers of these products. The information is from actual wealthy consumers, rather than non-consumers of luxury goods that only recognize names like Tag Heuer and Rolex.

The index uses factors such as “quality, social status and self-enhancement” in order to base their results. IWC’s blend of uniqueness and exclusivity, superior quality, self-enhancement and status gives them a unique place among consumer’s hearts.

This is not a huge surprise to me, but I agree that IWC is among my favourite watch brands and I am set on purchasing another IWC watch and adding to my collection soon!

Not the one I’m getting, but a little eye candy: The IWC Portuguese Tourbillon Mystere.