IWC Big Ingenieur Chronograph

The new IWC Big Ingenieur Chronograph watch first presented this January at SIHH-2009, currently tops my list of IWC’s Most Wanted Watches being second only to the recently revealed IWC Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month.

The IWC Ingenieur family of watches was introduced more than fifty years ago. Being IWC’s first self-winding timepiece with an antimagnetic shield, for the three consecutive generations it was an icon of a clean and simple watch designed to serve daily needs of men “with occupations”.

Things radically changed in the mid-70s, when IWC hired former Audemars Piguet employee Gerald Genta to make an answer to the highly popular Royal Oak men’s sports watch. The watch gained a lot of extra weight, became bigger and bolder, and… duller. Although IWC’s marketing keeps calling the Jumbo Ingenieur a “classic” model, in reality it was a disaster. The watch just didn’t sell. Nevertheless, all consecutive Engineers feature the same gargantuan proportions of the first Jumbo. Fortunately, the latest models look more like bodybuilders in a great shape rather than sumo wrestlers in a mid-season.

Just like most modern Engineers, the watch features a pair of prominent baton-shaped hour and minute hands, a black dial with an inner part decorated in a brick-like pattern and applied “Ingenieur” and “IWC Shaffhausen” logos, and a pair of chronograph dials on the 6 and 12 o’clock. Hour indices are also hand-applied and filled with some fluorescent agent. Its bezel features a tachymeter scale that serves a purely decorative purpose. Generally, it looks like the next iteration of the Ingenieur Automatic Chronograph 3725-01 model, but more elegant and subtle.

Inside its large case (it is 45.5mm in diameter and 14.5mm thick) is ticking an in-house IWC 89360 self-winding caliber with a power reserve of 68 hours. First revealed two years ago and originally designed by Stefan Ihnen for the Da Vinci family of watches, the caliber is a Porsche 911 in the watchmaking world where the omnipresent Valjoux 7750 movement is just a practical and mass-produced VW Golf.

All in all, the watch leaves an impression of a very masculine timepiece, making your average metrosexual human being feel uncomfortable with its weight and size and mojo. Like all Engineers, this model features a highly legible dial, a pair of easy to operate pushpieces and a reasonably big crown. Well, those tiny hands on the chronograph dials could have been a trifle larger as well as the seconds hand and the date window, but overall this is a beautiful watch.

Company stays mum about the watch’s price, but I would guesstimate that they will charge around €6,000 for the stainless steel model and closer to €10,000 for the IWC Big Ingenieur Chronograph in rose gold. Potential pricing for the platinum version gives me the shivers.

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IWC Big Ingenieur Chronograph watch’s specification :

Price range: $40,000 for the gold and $70,000 for the platinum
Movement: Caliber 89360, automatic
Complications: Chronograph, date
Power reserve: 68 hours
Case material: Rose gold or platinum or stainless steel, transparent caseback with sapphire crystal
Case dimensions: 45.5 mm
Case height: 14.5 mm
Dial: Black
Water resistance: 12 Atm
Strap: Brown alligator leather with a folding clasp
Crystal: Sapphire, anti-reflective