A breath of fresh air: Hublot King Power Unico GMT

A week is not a week without Hublot, don’t you think? But wait, since the 2011 Formula 1 season finished in November in Brazil, and there are still three more months till the next season, what could Hublot possibly show us? Puzzling, I know. Don’t worry that’s where we come in. Amazingly, this time, Hublot made actually a very intriguing and refreshingly interesting watch. Before you suffer from a stroke hearing this shocking news, relax, it is still a King Power and foundations of the universe are safe blah blah, but it is a GMT watch, only with a twist!

Hublot King Power Unico GMT

Officially scheduled for debut in January 2012 (SIHH presumably), Hublot King Power Unico GMT looks like an illegitimate, extremely loud and noisy offspring of a traditional worldwide time control collection by Girard-Perregaux and rebellious Urwerk’s UR-103. I guess that’s a good thing, if you ever happen to learn how to read this somewhat confusing dial… As you can see, the GMT complication consists of a cross with 4 discs at the end of each arm, which rotates in sync with the central time. Six geographical locations – Azores, Paris, Dhaka, Noumea (?!), Samoa and Mexico – are printed on the bezel. Given how much an average Hublot cost (hint: more than 26, less than 28 thousand dollars), I can only presume those names could be altered by your wish. Anyways, that 4 discs rotate as well showing time in those zones with the help of little red markers. Or something like that, not really sure how it works, we will have to wait for an official video to clear that up.

Hublot King Power Unico GMT in 18k gold

Hublot has been working hard last couple of years to establish themselves as a serious movement manufacture, and since 2007, they pumped mind boggling 40 million Swiss francs into their facilities and research. Up till now, there wasn’t really something out of the ordinary they could show (aside from the Masterpiece collection, that is, but those watches were never meant to be mass produced), but with this HUB 1220 caliber, they really elevated things to the next level. In case you were wondering, it is an automatic movement with GMT complication and 72 hours of power reserve. Not too shabby…

The size of Hublot King Power Unico GMT is not surprising, almost Hublot’s standard 48 millimeters, and it will be available in either black ceramic or 18k gold case, with both versions sporting the ceramic bezel. I’m not the big fan of gold (perhaps it would be this new Magic gold Hublot announced a couple of weeks ago), but I cannot but wonder how it would look with gold bezel?