Mercedes-Benz is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year and their wristwatch partner IWC are honouring the occasion with the launch of the new Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz. It’s all about elegance and clean style inside the practical carriage of a steel pilot’s watch.
Starting with the case, it’s a 42mm steel piece with brushed finishing across its sides and a polished bezel. It also has the traditional IWC Big Pilot’s Watch oversized crown at 3 o’clock, which is designed to be easy to use while wearing thick, leather pilot’s gloves. Although as this is a ProSet model, the crown is even more important because the entire perpetual calendar display is set using the crown. This improves the convenience and quality of life of owning a perpetual calendar by a significant margin compared to fiddling with hidden pushers and unintuitive controls.
For the display, it’s all about that restrained elegance. While IWC have produced plenty of watches supporting Mercedes’ racing heritage, this is much more about their luxury cars. With its black dial, gold appliques and gold-plated hands, this is a Maybach in watch form. It features central hours, minutes and seconds, with four subdials for moonphase, date, month and days of the week. There’s also the current year between 7 and 8 o’clock.
IWC are at the top of the game when it comes to perpetual calendars, having produced the most precise calendar watch ever with the Eternal Calendar in 2024 which will remain accurate for thousands of years. The Perpetual Calendar ProSet is not quite at that level but its precision is still insane, the moonphase will deviate by only one day after 1,040 years. At its heart is the calibre 82665, which has a 60-hour power reserve provided by IWC’s Pellaton winding system. It also has a silicon hairspring, reducing friction and improving anti-magnetic field protection.
The IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz is priced at £32,100 – limited to 140 pieces for 140 years. That’s £2,600 more than the steel Perpetual Calendar ProSet that was introduced in April, which makes sense given the addition of gold components across the dial and its limited edition status. This watch really is about embracing that Mercedes sense of luxury and refinement while keeping that practical edge inspired by the automotive industry and in that quest, it’s very successful.
Price and Specs:
More details at IWC.
