Straight from the wild mind of Max Büsser, MB&F has generated yet another fascinating Horological Machine inspired by the automotive industry, a revamp in fact of the brand's previous automotive-inspired HM8 – now the HM8 Mark 2 . And just like a great car, even sitting still, the watch looks fast. Büsser had always dreamed of being a car designer, and while his path went elsewhere, he's drawn on iconic car design for a number of watches in the past. The HM5 has slats that actually work and evoke the futuristic Bertone Lamborghini Miura with its louvers on the rear window. The HMX drew inspiration from the Traveling Superleggera. Then there was the actual HM8 "Can-Am. " Well the new HM8 Mark 2 uses the same movement as the original HM8 with a Girard-Perregaux base however a design language that is much more modern, calling on one of the fastest cars on the planet: the particular Porsche 918 Spyder.
As opposed to the Can-Am inspired chrome "roll bars" and white gold or rose gold case of the HM8, the case has been reimagined in a new material developed for MB&F called CarbonMacrolon®, the composite materials composed of any polymer matrix injected with carbon nanotubes. The material can be colored, polished, bead-blasted, lacquered, satin-finished, and still weigh 1/8th the weight associated with steel. Revealing the HM8 Mark two "engine" required a lot of work. MB&F says that creating this double-domed sapphire to match the case is 30 to 40 times more expensive than a dome blue and the process has a high risk of failure, especially here at the end regarding its construction. But once it's done, the sapphire is apparently as durable as any other. The 22k gold "battle axe" rotor is also so thin it has to be stamped (engravings included). The display is exactly what you've come to know - an old-style speedometer but using jumping hour as well as trailing minutes show with a prism privately of the case.
After that there's the new "double de-clutch" system within the crown. The actual crown will be shifted in and also turned three-quarters of the way around to release it use. The watch comes in two colors - white and British racing green - along with contrasting straps. Each is actually $78, 000 but the eco-friendly model is fixed to thirty three pieces. I think if you love MB&F you almost always fall into one of two camps: you're an Legacy Machine person or a Horological Machine individual. While the LM's are big, with their domed crystals dominating the wrists, they at least felt a bit more legible along with close to my personal "home" in addition to love involving traditional horological industry.
Meanwhile, I've always thought of MB&F's Horological Machines typically pretty steam-punky-looking takes on avant-garde horological style. Some veer more alien (like typically the HM7) or even animal (like the HM10 "Bulldog") but for all the talk of highly advanced design, two have was out from the rest for me. Both the HM5 plus HMX fit in the "automotive" framework that MB&F was going for with the watches but they felt more sleek and even modern than the HM8 ever did. And while the HM5 was tough and burly, touching on my childhood love of Can-Am cars, often the HMX felt more sleek and contemporary. If neither previous watch sang for me, this view is belting out the hits. The way that Büsser and his team have instantly evoked the shape of a Porsche 918 Spyder will be phenomenal and makes it successful for me. As the team took away the cloth covering the enjoy, I immediately could see the iconic twin rear exhausts of the 918 sitting behind the roll bar as two "humps" behind the exact driver together with passenger seat, except this time the sky-blue crystal reveals the Girard-Perregaux base movement that powers the bouncing hour and trailing moments module developed in-house.
That design and the choice of the very CarbonMacrolon® substance brings the watch, like the vehicle, into the 21st Century. Just like the HM5, this timepiece has an independent water-resistant case with "body panels" added on. The watch is incredibly light, and fantastically nice (unsurprisingly) and also the mix of colours between the CarbonMacrolon® case, strap, movement, as well as rotor make this one of the most "traditionally" modern watches and potentially easily wearable MB&F releases. In fact , it might be the wearability that could be one of the biggest selling points for the see. If you look past the obvious, there are plenty of other things to appreciate, largely in the creative technical decisions we've arrived at appreciate from MB&F. The particular sapphire on the movement, for instance, barely warrants a second thought when you contemplate it but the press materials empty your wallet of time entering how hard it is to create a blue with a shape to stimulate the Zagato double bubble. I never thought much about the prisms either, but now that I like the watch far more, I can't get over the genius. For those that don't know, the prisms on an HM8 Mark a couple of (or HM5, HM8, or perhaps HMX) refract the flat disks (running on the plane of the movement) 90º so that they can be viewed when your band wrist is held sideways -- like on a car steering wheel. Yes, that it's a driver's watch is usually obvious, however I in no way thought about how simple of a solution that is, while still saving space and also height around the watch. The only killer (beside the price tag being outside my budget) is that my favorite color - the main British Racing Green : is limited in order to 33 pieces. So if some day I ever save the money for an HM8 Tag 2, they'll all be gone faster than the usual 918 Spyder can go 0-60mph.