IWC’s New Big Pilot’s Watch ProSet Reinvents the Perpetual Calendar for Mercedes-Benz’s 140th

IWC has built its reputation on making complicated watches easy to live with, and its newest Big Pilot’s Watch pushes that idea about as far as it will go. Unveiled on August 13 to mark the 140th anniversary of its longtime partner Mercedes-Benz, the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz is limited to 140 pieces, one for each year of the carmaker’s history. But the reason it matters to collectors has little to do with cars.

A Perpetual Calendar You Can Set Like the Time

That reason is the Perpetual Calendar ProSet, which IWC introduced earlier this year at Watches and Wonders in Geneva and calls one of its most significant calendar developments in decades. The perpetual calendar remains one of watchmaking’s hardest complications to build and, historically, one of the most awkward to set, usually demanding a series of recessed pushers and careful sequencing. The ProSet does away with all of it. For the first time from IWC, the entire calendar can be adjusted both forward and backward from a single crown position: no pushers, no menus, no changes in crown position. Setting the date is now as intuitive as setting the time.

Four Patents Behind the Simplicity

That apparent simplicity hides a serious feat of engineering. The new module is built entirely from gears and protected by four patents, with components whose geometries are so intricate that IWC produces them using the LIGA process, a microstructuring technology based on lithography and electroforming. It traces a line back to 1985, when the legendary IWC watchmaker Kurt Klaus created the brand’s first perpetual calendar; the ProSet reimagines that complication from the ground up.

A Moon Phase Accurate for 1,040 Years

On the dial, the calendar reads across four subdials, with the date at three o’clock, the month at six, the day at nine, and the moon phase at twelve, plus IWC’s signature four-digit year display tucked between seven and eight. The moon phase is a highlight in its own right: a newly calculated reduction gear means it will drift by only one day every 1,040 years, and IWC’s Double Moon shows the moon correctly for viewers in both hemispheres.

Powering it is the IWC-manufactured caliber 82665, with a nickel-phosphorus escapement, a silicon hairspring, and the brand’s bidirectional Pellaton automatic winding reinforced with ceramic components, good for 60 hours of reserve. The 42mm stainless steel case, 14mm tall and water-resistant to 100 meters, frames a black dial with solid gold appliqués and gold-plated hands, and rides on a black rubber strap with IWC’s tool-free EasX-CHANGE system.

A Tribute to 140 Years of Mercedes-Benz

The Mercedes-Benz connection lives on the back. Through the sapphire case back sits the first joint logo of Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie., the emblem created when the two companies merged in 1926, combining Benz’s laurel wreath with Daimler’s three-pointed star. It’s a fitting marker for a watch built around a partnership IWC has held for 22 years, and for a complication that, in the brand’s telling, finally makes the perpetual calendar behave like every other watch on the wrist.

Adrienne Faurote

Editor in Chief · Haute Time

As a former New Yorker, now a “Miamian,” Adrienne Faurote joined Haute Living in August of 2021. She currently serves as the Haute Media Group Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all editorial platforms within the Haute Media Group while also maintaining her role as Fashion, Jewelry & Watch Director. Prior to her position at Haute Living, Faurote was the Market Editor at Marie Claire Magazine US, amassing over ten years in the industry, becoming an authoritative voice in all things fashion, jewelry, and watches.