The IWC Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola”

The IWC Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola”

The IWC Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola”

The IWC Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola” - area of the Schaffhausen-based brand’s revamped Ingenieur line for 2017 - comes with an elegant retro look along with a completely recently developed movement. How made it happen perform within our test? Continue reading to discover.

The IWC Ingenieur premiered in 1955 like a three-handed watch having a clean design and protection against magnetic fields as much as 80,000 amperes per meter. The timepiece was produced to make sure that technicians and researchers would continually be punctual within an more and more electronic world. In 1976, the famous watch designer Gérald Genta, whose other brainchildren   include Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak and Patek Philippe’s Nautilus, sketched an entirely new Ingenieur. Genta’s “SL” had five little holes in the bezel, a built-in metal bracelet, along with a soft-iron inner situation to safeguard it against magnetism. This styling was elevated once the Ingenieur line was relaunched in 2005, but a few of these models didn't have protection against magnetic fields. IWC has generated but still builds numerous models with diverse additional functions like a second time zone, chronograph, perpetual calendar and tourbillon.

IWC elevated several historic watches in 2008 if this premiered the Vintage collection. Of these would be a three-handed watch that compensated homage towards the first Ingenieur with dauphine hands and applied baton-formed indexes. This model also were built with a azure window in the caseback through for you to view manufacture Caliber 80111. The down-side of the nice view: Magnetic-field protection needed to be overlooked. However the core from the Vintage collection remains the big models with five holes within their bezels.

WC’s new Caliber 69370 includes a column wheel and also the brand’s characteristic pawl-winding system.

The IWC Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola”

The Ingenieur line again welcomes one having a smooth bezel. Such as the SL, this watch will come in steel, titanium and gold. The 3 versions are restricted editions. A chronograph also fits well because yet another function that further improves the Ingenieur’s functionality. Missing a predecessor in the 1950s, this model posed a far more difficult challenge because of its designers. Initially glance, the brand new Ingenieur looks timelessly elegant, by having an angled flange for that tachymeter scale, an extensive bezel, along with a slate grey sunray-pattern dial. The Ingenieur’s engineering look is necessary with indexes attracted backward and forward- and three-digit figures along with a zero added left from the single-digit figures around the subdials. The date includes a leading zero. Using red on a few of the scales as well as on the pointer tips from the chronograph and seconds hands adds a little sportiness.

Just the ecru-colored luminous material and also the saddle-stitched leather strap, which calls in your thoughts the upholstery on the vehicle seat, convey an old-fashioned look. The automotive reference is intentional: Our test watch is known as after race vehicle driver Rudolf Caracciola. Born in 1901, he was driving his parents’ Mercedes-Dark night before she got his license at 15. Starting in 1926, he won numerous Grand Prix and sports vehicle races driving of the Mercedes and it was certainly one of his era’s most effective race vehicle motorists.

Only if you take particular notice at our test watch have you detected the baton-formed indexes with luminous dots in their outer ends and also the double luminous us dot in the 12 trace their ancestry towards the first Ingenieur. A few of the earliest Ingenieurs also had baton-formed hands with sharp points. The situation with applied bezel, polished surfaces and satin-finished sides can also be like the situation from the first Ingenieur (Reference 666).

Overall, IWC’s designers have produced a handsome watch, however the design isn’t totally harmoniously using the retro look. The situation is simply too high and also the bezel slopes too steeply downward to become a dyed-in-the-made of woll retro watch. Which newcomer includes a contemporary diameter of 42 mm. The situation from the Edition “Rudolf Caracciola” we tested consists of steel.

A few of the styling from the Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola” recalls the IWC Ingenieur from 1955.

The IWC Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola”

This model’s second special feature is recently engineered chronograph Caliber 69370, which is often used here the very first time. Why did IWC create a second self-winding chronograph movement? The surprising answer: therefore the brand could offer less-pricey chronographs encasing a manufacture caliber. Before this debut, IWC had offered chronographs encasing Caliber Valjoux 7750 (provided by ETA), which IWC denotes as “Caliber 79xxx.” The costs of these watches began around $5,800. Watches with IWC’s own chronograph Caliber 89xxx cost around $11,000: almost two times just as much. Our test watch retails for $7,150. The brand new movement is sort of taller and therefore achieves exactly the same dimensions because the Valjoux 7750, meaning later on, IWC could switch the Valjoux movement with this particular new caliber without encountering any major problems.

What features must one do without within this new manufacture movement when compared to older caliber? The ability reserve is shorter (46 hrs rather of 68 hrs). There isn’t any flyback function, which may have made it feasible to begin a brand new passed-time measurement while an earlier one ongoing to operate. And also the new model also lacks a combined counter for passed hrs and passed minutes, which may let the user to without effort read passed time as evidently of the ordinary clock. The brand new movement’s construction now is easier from the technical perspective since it depends on a catalog for fine adjustment instead of on weight screws across the rim from the balance. Both new model and it is predecessor have column-wheel control for that chronograph, rocking-pinion coupling and IWC’s characteristic pawl-winding system.

The ornamental variations aren’t especially gigantic either

That old 89xxx, which reveals much more of its mechanisms, also offers decorative patterns on its wheels, and gold fillings in the engravings. However the new 69xxx also has a skeletonized rotor, a circular pattern around the bridges and polished heads around the screws. However, close scrutiny implies that a few of the movement’s components happen to be left entirely unembellished.

IWC is often belittled because of its suboptimal cost-performance ratio, but our test watch using the new movement achieves a considerably better ratio. In addition, only 750 bits of this Ingenieur Chronograph Edition “Rudolf Caracciola” is going to be made.