This is Azimuth’s Special Project Line, SP-1 Mecanique concept watch. It is nicknamed the ‘spaceship watch’, as it is a forward-looking timepiece with an adventurous mix of bold, futuristic styling and progressive technical flaunts.
The design idea of the large minute hand is inspired by the intergalactic warfare which the genre of movie goers of the 1980s and 1990s will fondly remember. The 3-dimensional elongated carriage is the minute hand and it carries the hour disc with it. The circular opening on the hand with the numerical displayed is the hour. The minutes are read off the traditional way. Once the minute hand completes a 60-minute round, the hour numeral jumps and the next hour is displayed within the circular opening.
Inspired by the views from the cockpit of a space shuttle when telling the time on the SP-1 Mecanique, its enigmatic blue dial is showered with tiny specks of luminous stars into the ‘galaxy’. The rotating ‘planet Earth’ actually completes one revolution every 60 seconds. The rotating ‘Earth’ is the alternative to a sweep seconds hand, which indicates that your watch is alive and running.
Matching the mesmerizing dial design is its equally ingenious jumping hour display. Powered by a Unitas 6497 movement finely finished in Cotes de Geneve stripes, a rotating disc, framed by the short end of the 3-dimensional minute hand, is a jumping hour complication. Highly stylized, the broad minute hand comes finished with a skeletonized outline that resembles a space shuttle hurtling across the universe.
A breathtakingly sculptural masterpiece, the SP-1 Mecanique mimics the profile of a spacecraft’s cockpit. Its 45mm stainless steel case with elongated lugs is capped by a domed sapphire crystal to lend the watch a multi-dimensional look. The avant-garde case design then is topped with a giant crown at ‘12’ that is guaranteed to send fans of whimsical horological excursions over the moon.
Technical Details
Movement: Unitas 6497-1 with Côtes de Genève decoration, blue screws
Functions: Mystery jumping hours, minutes, seconds
Case: 316 L stainless steel, ø 45 mm, water resistant to 3 bars
Band: 22 mm perforated sports leather strap
