With the 2010 AMVOX5 World Chronograph (ref. 193L471), Jaeger-LeCoultre expands its collection of luxury timekeepers featuring a “world clock” functionality that’s all the rage these days.
Yesterday I and my wife went to a newly opened Snaidero‘s dealership to look for a new set of furniture for our kitchen. The importer has only just started selling the stuff and only a small number of models was present –including the gorgeous albeit significantly overpriced Venus, elegant Gioconda, and, the one that struck me most, Kube by Giovanni Offredi – but it was enough for me to realize just how much value you can get for a price of a full-size SUV.
The materials are well-chosen, the design is outstanding, and the build is excellent. And, of course, there is a great number of handy gadgets that make using the kitchens a real pleasure.
Well, for the past couple of weeks I have seen a lot of much less expensive kitchens featuring drawers with well-organized cutlery trays and accessorized boiseries, and all… However, it is the attention to the subtlest of details that makes a piece of furniture a masterpiece, and that is why Volkswagen Phaeton looks so painfully bleak and cheap when standing next to a Rolls-Royce.
The same goes for watches. If you don’t count R&B stars and NBA players, people pay tens of thousands of euros not only because the brand is well-established or the Governator himself likes it, but because you simply cannot find a similar level of refinement in the sub-$10,000 range.
Hell, most of the affordable models are coming powered by standard-issue automatic movements that are produced in hundreds of thousands each year. Sometimes the blank calibers are heavily decorated, and sometimes are shamefully hidden behind a solid case back, but in most cases, you pay for your favorite brand’s logo engraved on an otherwise dull and oh-so-standard stainless steel oscillating weight.
This brings me neatly to the 2010 AMVOX5 World Chronograph that easily packs all the necessary and sufficient conditions of an ideal Swiss watch into a midsize case made of titanium/rose gold and ceramic.
Created together with the British sports car icon Aston Martin, the AMVOX5 bears all design clues of the current AMVOX series seamlessly adding a world time clock functionality that some people usually refer to as GMT indication.
The extra time zone display comes courtesy of JLC’s new Calibre 752 automatic movement, which is developed and built completely in-house. We have already seen the caliber in the 2010 Master Compressor Extreme World Chronograph (Ref. 1768450 and Ref. 1762450) collection.
Just like the Master Compressor, the AMVOX5 features the same basic dial layout with a central chronograph second hand, a pair of subdials for a 30-minute and a 12-hour chronograph counters, as well as an extra hour hand to indicate time in a given city (well, to once again reiterate its long-standing alliance with Aston Martin, JLC decided to replace the “London” mark on the list of time zones with “Gaydon”: a town where Aston Martin is based.)
The main second hand is, too, indicated with a rotating disc located at 6 o’clock and here you can see Aston Martin’s logo well-known to car enthusiasts all over the world.
As is always the case with Jaeger-LeCoultre, the timepiece shows an astonishing level of refinement starting from a lightweight case crafted from a single piece of ceramic material to a sophisticated winding mechanism featuring a lubricant-free ceramic ball bearings and laser-welded balance spring.
It is still not clear when and where the AMVOX5 will be sold, but it is known that JLC is going to produce the model in two limited editions. The first one, delivered in a ceramic/titanium case, will be issued in only 300 pieces. The second, which will probably be a tad more expensive, will arrive in ceramic/pink gold case in a lot limited to only 200 units.
See also: Jaeger-LeCoultre AMVOX 3 Tourbillon GMT Aston Martin
Photos: Jaeger-LeCoultre
Jaeger-LeCoultre AMVOX5 World Chronograph (ref. 193L471) specification
Price range: 27,000 (MSRP)
Movement: JLC caliber 752, automatic, in-house, 279 parts, 41 jewels, hand-decorated, 22ct rose gold rotor, 28,800 vph, 5.6 mm in height, Ruthenium-plated movement bridges and plate, Swiss Made
Complications: Chronograph, date, second time-zone
Power reserve: 65 hours
Case: High-grade 5 titanium and ceramic; or 18-karat Rose gold and ceramic
Size: 44.00 mm
Case height: 15.20 mm
Dial: Black and white and gold, partly skeletonized
Water resistance: 50 meters
Strap: Black leather strap with light-gray stitching
Crystal: Sapphire, antireflective