IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Marks 140 Years of Mercedes-Benz

IWC Schaffhausen has launched the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz, a limited edition created for the carmaker’s 140th anniversary. Restricted to 140 pieces, Ref. IW329603 combines a 42-millimetre stainless-steel case with IWC’s new crown-adjustable perpetual calendar mechanism.

A perpetual calendar designed to be easier to set

The Perpetual Calendar ProSet is based entirely on gears and protected by four patents, according to IWC. Unlike traditional perpetual-calendar arrangements that can require separate case pushers or more involved setting procedures, the calendar can be adjusted both forward and backward through a single crown position.

IWC says the mechanism relies on components with particularly complex geometries produced using the LIGA microstructuring process, which combines lithography and electroforming. The engineering is directed at usability as much as mechanical complexity, making a sophisticated calendar easier to correct after a watch has stopped for an extended period.

Four displays and a 1,040-year moon phase

The date is displayed at 3 o’clock, the month at 6 and the day of the week at 9, while the Double Moon display occupies the 12 o’clock position and represents the moon for both hemispheres. A four-digit year display between 7 and 8 o’clock continues one of the signatures associated with IWC’s perpetual calendars.

A newly calculated reduction gear gives the moon-phase display a stated accuracy of one day in 1,040 years. Power comes from the IWC-manufactured calibre 82665, which combines a nickel-phosphorus escapement and silicon hairspring with Pellaton automatic winding reinforced by ceramic components and a 60-hour power reserve.

Mercedes-Benz anniversary details

The brushed and polished 42-millimetre steel case frames a black dial with solid-gold appliqués, gold-plated hands and a white minute track. Through the sapphire-glass case back, a historic Mercedes-Benz emblem recalls the first joint logo introduced after Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie. merged in 1926.

The special edition is fitted to a black rubber strap with IWC’s EasX-CHANGE system, allowing the strap to be exchanged without tools. Its production run of 140 watches deliberately mirrors the 140 years since the beginnings of the Mercedes-Benz automotive story in 1886.

A partnership built around engineering

IWC became a partner of Mercedes-AMG in 2004 and has served as Official Engineering Partner of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One team since 2013. The anniversary watch therefore joins a long sequence of Mercedes-AMG and Formula 1-related IWC models, while shifting the emphasis from motorsport chronographs toward one of the manufacture’s signature calendar complications.

For Superyacht Lifestyle, the collaboration is most interesting where the technical identity extends beyond anniversary branding. Mercedes-Benz provides the historical setting, but the mechanical centrepiece is the bidirectional ProSet calendar, an attempt to make one of traditional watchmaking’s demanding complications considerably easier to live with.