Power Partners
Ferrari and Hublot lead the race in a handsome duet as seen in the Big Bang Unico Ferrari, the Laferrari Aperta and the Techframe Ferrari 70 years Tourbillon Chronograph watches
From maranello in italy to Nyon in Switzerland, a team of expert artisans took a journey across Ferrari’s 70 years of excellence. Head of Design Flavio Manzoni led the decades-old process of designing a highperformance masterpiece, this time a watch instead of a sports car: the Big Bang Ferrari. The watch is a limited edition, available in 1,000 pieces made of titanium, and 500 pieces each from Unidirectional Carbon and King Gold.
The movement inside each 45mm watch is the unique UNICO, a two push-button flyback chronograph that can be reset at anytime, with a 72-hour power reserve. With the UNICO movement, reliability and robustness is boosted thanks to the barrel driving directly the hour counter with no jumper in the chronograph mechanism.
In the UNICO, the movement echoes Ferrari’s iconic star-spoke, wheel-rim design on the oscillating weight that, together with the main plate and bridges, is treated with black PVD—AS seen through the clear dial and sapphire-case back. Additional supercarinspired features on the dial are the minute counter, designed akin to a car tachometer, and the date counter, styled just like a Ferrari speed dial.
Moreover, the seconds counter is placed at 9 o’clock in the shape of an air extractor, and the Prancing Horse logo is at 6 o’clock. On the side, the elongated push-buttons are fixed to a rotating staff like a car’s pedals, and the Hublot-marked crown is guarded ergonomically with rubber shaped into Ferrari’s Turbo Performance Engineer. The name Ferrari itself is emblazoned in bright red across the watch’s iconic sandwich-like construction, while a red streak runs down the middle of the case akin to the red line that surrounds the Laferrari Aperta model.
The Laferrari Aperta, however, is a more technical watch powered for 50 days by movements HUB9005.H1.PN.1JN for the clear version and HUB9005 for the all-black version. The movement’s 11 series-coupled barrels, with a similar look to the Ferari engine, are topped perpendicularly by a tourbillon that counts down the seconds on the tourbillon cage.
On the right side of the barrels, reinforced with Ferrari-red anodised aluminium,
two anodised aluminium cylinders in black rotate each minute and hour to tell the engraved time. Similarly, on the left side are two cylinders that rotate to show the leftover power reserve. Wind the watch at its crown on the apex where sleek, aerodynamic Ferrariinspired lines merge, and set the time at the smaller crown on the open case-back.
All of Laferrari Aperta’s 637 components are safely housed in sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment as the inner case. The outer case is available either in polished and smoked sapphire crystal, or microblasted black Pvd-coated titanium. Both versions are safely strapped in black, smooth rubber locked with a colour-matching deployant buckle clasp, and are only made in 50 pieces for each type.
Another limited-edition watch born out of Ferrari and Hublot’s partnership is the Hublot Techframe Ferrari 70 years Tourbillon Chronograph. First, the Ferrari team built a titanium skeleton case around the the HUB6311 manual-winding Tourbillon Chronograph. Add the King Gold to the skeleton—titanium or hypoallergenic Unidirectional PEEK Carbon in other versions—for cases with maximum strength yet minimal weight. The HUB6311 itself has five days of power reserve with its single-button chronograph to start, stop, and reset the watch controlled by an anodised-aluminium lever in Ferrari red.
Treated with ruthenium anthracite, the Techframe’s flying tourbillon is beautifully displayed on the black-varnished dial. To optimise the watch’s performance, the crown on the fourth hour is sized as such to reduce the size of the watch and to give an overall aerodynamic look. On all three versions, “Limited Edition, No XX/ 70” is engraved on the caseback to show the production number. This shows a clear indication of high-quality watches in precious limited quantity all made to the excise standards of performance in the Ferrari-hublot partnership.