A Look At Two Recently Introduced IWC Ingenieur Watches

While its focus was squarely on its Aquatimer divers’ watches at the 2014 SIHH, IWC has circled back to last year’s featured watch line, the Ingenieur, with two new IWC Ingenieur watches that it is launching this summer, both bearing the Ingenieur collection’s revamped design codes, influenced by materials and functions used in Formula One racing.

The IWC Ingenieur Dual Time (Ref. IW324402/IW324404) is one of the more understated Ingenieur watches, with a stainless steel case measuring “only” 43 mm in diameter. The dial, either silver-plated (as shown) or black, is relatively clean, with central hours, minutes and (hacking) seconds hands, a date display at 3 o’clock, and its signature function, a second-time-zone display. The watch, which is powered by IWC’s automatic Caliber 35720, shows the local time on the hour and minute hands and the time in another time zone of the wearer’s choice by means of another center-mounted hand tipped with a red arrow. The arrow-tipped GMT hand points to the second time zone on the 24-hour scale around the edge of the dial; the scale’s use of contrasting colors — darker on the top half of the ring, from 6 PM to 6 AM, and lighter on the lower half — makes it easy to determine daytime hours from nighttime ones. The local time can be adjusted in one hour steps backward or forward via the screw-down crown. The movement has a 42-hour power reserve and a frequency of 28,800 vph. The case is water-resistant to 120 meters and bears the classical Ingenieur bezel with the five striking bore holes, a nod to the original IWC Ingenieur design by Gérald Genta. The new IWC Ingenieur Dual Time comes on a stainless-steel bracelet and is priced at $9,700.

The other new watch, the IWC Ingenieur Automatic Carbon Performance Ceramic (Ref. IW322404), wears its Formula One pedigree on its sleeve. (IWC is the official engineering partner of the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One racing team, a collaboration that inspired the recent revamp of the Ingenieur collection.) The watch combines two materials used in the construction of high-performance cars — lightweight-but-robust carbon fiber for the case and dial, and mirror-finished ceramic for the bezel. The middle section of the case, which is held together by five screws, is manufactured using the same principles as the core features of a racecar. Ceramic is also used for the screw heads, crown and crown protectors, and another lightweight and tough material from the racing world, titanium, is used for the screws and caseback as well as the strap’s pin buckle. The sporty strap is made of rubber with a calfskin inlay. The green elements on the watch — contrast stitching on the strap, numerals on the seconds scale — are also an allusion to racing: it is the color used for the stripes on the outer walls of tires fitted to cars for racing in wet conditions.

The IWC Ingeniuer Automatic Carbon Performance Ceramic contains an IWC manufacture movement, Caliber 80110, with the brand’s hallmark Pellaton automatic winding, an integrated shock absorption system (which IWC says makes the watch ideal for racing, as it is shields the movement from the shocks of extreme acceleration and sharp braking), and a rapid-advance date display activated by the crown. Like the Ingenieur Dual Time, this watch also has a central hacking seconds hand. The movement’s winding rotor, shaped like the pistons found in the engine of an F1 race car, is a final nod to the timepiece’s racing-influenced design. The case is 46 mm in diameter — a more standard size for an Ingenieur — and water-resistant to 12o meters. The price of the watch is $24,600.