MB & F Making Tracks With HM5 On the Road Again

By Valerie Jack | December 7, 2012

Luxury watchmakers Maximilian Büsser & Friends have brought together two of our favorite luxury pursuits: haute horlogerie and beautiful sportscars. The company recently unveiled the HM5 On the Road Again, an stunning ode to the Amida Digitrend and the super-powered cars of that iconic timepieces’ era.

The 51.5mm x 49mm x 22.5mm wedge-shaped case of MB & F’s HM5 was inspired by the fashionably futuristic tapered case and vertical digital LED-look of the Digitrend timepiece released in 1972 by the cutting edge but now-defunct watch company Amida. Furthermore, its smooth lines hark back to the low-riding sportscars with louvres on their near horizontal rear windows blocking sunlight and heat, as well as their throaty exhaust pipes. On the HM5, these inspiration manifest themselves in beautifully unique ways. The slide-operated louvres on the watch open to allow light in to charge on the Super-LumiNova numbers on the time disks. The HM5 also has dual exhausts to drain water (in case of emergency), like by the Lotus James Bond drives in The Spy Who Loved Me.

An optical grade sapphire prism makes the hour and minutes displays bi-directional; they can display normally or vertically thanks to a convex lens which reflects and magnifies the display. This vertical forward-facing display provides incredible readability, making this a true driver’s watch, as there is no need to lift your wrist from the steering wheel to read the display. Inside, this incredible timepiece is driven by a 224-component, three-dimensional automatic movement developed by Jean-François Mojon and Vincent Boucard of Chronode. Powered by a Sowind gear train and a 22k gold ‘battle axe’ automatic winding rotor, this engine runs at 28,800bph / 4Hz, affording the HM5 a 42-hour power reserve.