Yet another interesting piece makes its entrance into the world of watchmaking. Produced by C3H5N3O9 – the symbol of nitroglycerin – and reportedly named the ZR012, it is the brainchild of Urwerk and MB&F.
It boasts with a level of complexity hard to comprehend even by experienced minds, this being the strongest point of this exquisite timepiece. It boasts with both genius and practicality, and aims towards extremely rich and intelligent customers.
The movement was penned down and crafted as the work of Martin Frei and Urwerk’s Felix Baumgartner, while the 55 mm x 44 mm zirconium case with titanium lugs was built in collaboration with Serge Kriknoff and MB&F’s Max Büsser, as well as the co-manufacturer of the Harry Winston Opus 9 timepiece, Eric Giroud.
For connoisseurs, the design is obviously based on MB&F’s Thunderbolt case and Urwerk’s 200 series. Many voices are whispering that this is not a luxurious piece though, but some sort of experiment. We dare deny this, as this piece you can see here is quite unique and pretty much functional. Inside, it runs on the principle of the “Wankel engine”, invented in 1919 by the German Felix Wankel. Also known as a rotary combustion engine, it can be seen mounted on many 2-cylinder cars of today, especially Mazdas.
Time is being shown by the red tips of the rotating Releaux polygons, which trace epitrochoid curves. This has involved the careful plotting of 180 separate points to show the hour and minutes in an extremely accurate way, with a tolerance of only 0.2 mm between the triangular rotors.
This fine piece of engineering is available for purchase at 110,000 CHF. It will be delivered in less than a month from the pre-order day. More detailed information about the complex mechanism of this timepiece can be found on C3H5N3O9’s website.
[Perpetuelle]
