At the SIHH 2010, the relatively young Swiss watch maker Montblanc amazed the whole world with the launch of its etamorphosis watch.
T
he case, in special teardrop shape, is a tribute to Dali’s world-known melting clocks. And the transformer dial should be the most attractive and the best selling point of this watch. With one push of a slide, you can easily achieve the convert between the regular tell-telling mode and the chronograph mode on the dial.
In the regular mode, the dial presents three subsidiary dials. The one at 12 o’clock has a single hour hand, the second one at the middle of watch displaying the minute via a retrograde hand and a large scale that starts from 8 o’clock and ends at 4 o’clock , and the third one with a hand indicator telling the date.
By pushing the lever located at the left side of the case from 10 to 8 o’clock, you can tranform the dial into the chronograph mode that features a hour and minute chronograph subdials at 12 and 6 o’clock respectively. It takes about 15 seconds for the watch to complete this transformation.
To accommodate this marvelous functions, 312 extra parts are added to the the Minerva Kaliber 16-29 hand-wound movement that originally has just 252 parts. This super movement, beating at a freaquency of 18,00 vph, has double barrels to store enough energy for the functionalities including dial transformation.
At present, the Montblanc Metamorphosis watch, completed by a black leather strap, is still in the prototype phase. Really hope forward it will be put into real production soon.