Watch of the Week: Hublot Big Bang MP-11 Power Reserve 14 Days
Does power reserve count as a complication? Technically not, but some watches seem to be made to argue the difference. They are all about power reserve and not afraid to show it. One of those watches is Hublot’s Big Bang MP-11, whoes manual wind movement keeps ticking for 14-days and displays this in a theatrical way.
This Big Bang is part of the MP-collection, in which the two letters stand for ‘Manufacture Piece’ and contain some of the brands most complicated creations. For the MP-11 Hublot coupled seven mainspring barrels in series and placed them vertically in the movement. On the left side, they added a display role on which you can read the power reserve. Because of this construction, the dial is placed above it along with the rest movement. It gets its power from the mainspring barrels through a 90-degree helical worm gear. Because the mainspring barrels are higher than the movement, and even tower over the dial, both the bezel and sapphire crystal have to bulge out a bit to follow this shape. Especially from a visual point of view, this is quite spectacular.
What makes the MP-11 even more interesting is that Hublot offers it in quite a few different varieties, which each have a character of their own. In 3D Carbon, a material Hublot sourced from the US military is the MP-11 a 90-gram featherlight champion with a high-tech appearance. It is then not only its movement that is captivating but also the polymer matrix composite with a three-dimensional weave of carbon fiber that leaves an impression.
On the other end of the spectrum, we find the MP-11 crafted from King Gold, and set with colorless diamonds. A very precious creation, yet one with a technical twist as well. It might not be as evident as with the version in 3D Carbon, but cutting and setting the baguette-shaped diamonds to follow the bulge of the bezel perfectly is very complex to create. They use 50 stones to set the bezel, totaling 3.2 carats, with an additional 172 brilliant-cut diamonds for the case. Impressive numbers, just in case the 14-day power reserve wasn’t remarkable enough for you.
