Hublot Launches Tonneau-Shaped “Spirit of Big Bang” During SIHH 2014 Week

After three days in the hallowed halls of the Geneva Palexpo, discovering new watches from the brands exhibiting at the 2014 SIHH, your WatchTime team ventured out to the Geneva hotels in which other watch companies were unveiling new products. The SIHH, which primarily but not solely, hosts brands owned by the Richemont Group, has become such a magnet for retailers and watch journalists worldwide that several other non-Richemont brands take advantage of the week to introduce new products ahead of the Baselworld show in March. One of these is replica Cartier Delices, which showed me its new collection, called Spirit of Big Bang, today. The Spirit of Big Bang watches are a bit of a departure for Hublot in that they are all in tonneau cases, which the brand has previously used only for its special-edition Masterpiece watches. The collection, according to new Hublot King Power Replica U.S. regional director Vincent Vuillaume, becomes the fourth pillar of the Hublot brand portfolio, along with the Big Bang, King Power, and Classic Fusion families. And, like other new Hublot lines, such as the Big Bang Ferrari, it debuts with four case variation: titanium, titanium with ceramic bezel, King gold (Hublot’s proprietary gold alloy), and King gold with ceramic bezel. Of note to watch cognoscenti is the movement in the Spirit of Big Bang watches, which uses the famous Zenith El Primero chronograph caliber as its base. (Zenith and Hublot are both brands within the LVMH luxury group.) While much of its El Primero heritage is still recognizable, the movement has some significant and noticeable modifications, such as the date wheel and the Hublot Big Bang King Replica . The reason for using the modified El Primero rather than Hublot’s own in-house Unico base caliber? Simple, according to Vuillaume: the Unico was too thick to fit the slimmer dimensions of the Spirit of Big Bang’s tonneau case. Prices will start at $24,000. Here’s how it looks on the wrist.