Chopard Full Strike

Chopard watch boss Karl-Friedrich Scheufele is an unashamed petrolhead who often drives to work in one of his dozens of classic cars – and he’s managed to integrate his love of them into his business by involving the company in historic motoring events such as the Monaco Historique and Italy’s Mille Miglia.

In 1996, Scheufele brought Chopard coveted ‘manufacture’ status through the foundation of the LUC (for Louis-Ulysse Chopard) atelier in Fleurier, Switzerland, to make in-house movements and highend watches. It opened with a staff of three but now employs 160, and along the way has produced many complex in-house movements.

Its latest, the innovative Full Strike, is its first ‘minute repeater’: it chimes the hour, quarter hour and minutes past the quarter hour using gongs made from sapphire crystal, which are said to offer a clarity of sound far superior to any metallic material. Equally impressive is the fact that the minute repeater mechanism is activated not from a conventional slide at the side of the case, but from a small button integrated with the winding crown.

Such technical genius doesn’t come cheap, of course: a Full Strike will set you back around `1.7crore.