At the moment we know it, we surprised and owed its glorious design of the Ingenieur watch. The identity of this collection is impressively presented by its taut, virile and technical lines though it had a turbulent past. Furthermore, it seems that the Ingenieur have well shaped and established itself as a fixture in the replica IWC watches collections, the past history would no longer been the case. It was originally created in 1955, from then to now, these past decades are long enough to demonstrate its adventurous path. In 1975, it became famous because of the Genta’s design, which further is eclipsed during the quartz wave and then outstandingly revived in 2005. Despite the twists and turns of history, 2015 is the perfect time to celebrate a model which is still very much on the scene with such a string of “5s” in its chronology.
Built for bright sparks
Its audience, including cientists, scholars and engineers, has remained unchanged. Thanks to these people, the model can be initially developed in the 1950s. Sturdy, antimagnetic, water-resistant and accurate, it will lead you to measure and explore the whole world.
Right from the beginning, the Ingenieur was an essence of high-tech features. Its Faraday cage was able to protect the movement against magnetic fields of up to 80, 000 A/m (amperes per metre). That was 10 times the minimum antimagnetic requirement of the time for Swiss watches! However, watch design in 1955 was not as bold as it would become in the following decades. The highly technical Ingenieur was demonstrated in an exceptionally traditional design that somehow blurred its positioning boundaries. And that was exactly where Genta would step in.
A barrel and screws
Before he cooperated with the Ingenieur, in 1972, Genta had already designed the Royal Oak. In order to make an innovation, IWC was combined with the latter content and its own style secrets. There is no doubt that the Ingenieur was the indispensable candidate for Genta. As the model, it was perfectly showing the full power of technical nature.
It had what it took to guarantee its success, and yet nothing much happened: the Ingenieur designed by Genta turned out as a commercial failure which was only produced 1, 000. However, with hindsight, this failure is propelled to the tidal wave of quartz watches. Perhaps the model was simply too far ahead of its time, because currently these extremely rare collector’s timepieces sell for more than CHF 10, 000.
IWC tended to jolt the Ingenieur out of its rut, from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Two models were entrusted with this daunting mission: one with a quartz movement that was supposed to be more in tune with the trend of the times; and then, a few years past, a new edition equipped with an externally sourced ETA 2892 movement – showing an unique industrial approach for replica IWC that boasts a great number of in-house calibres including those developed by its technical director since 1944, the brilliant James Pellaton.
Largely ignored by the public at large, the Ingenieur then returned to its initial, purely technical territory. IWC started to collaborate with armed forces in developing extreme models, remarkably capable of withstanding magnetic fields of 500 a/m. The result was a moderate success (3, 000 were sold), but was in fact truly noteworthy for having pushed antimagnetic boundaries to an unprecedented level. In terms of precision, the other strong suit of the Ingenieur, IWC replica sourced from LMH (Jaeger-LeCoultre) a hybrid Meca Quartz model featuring a quartz movement, a mechanical chronograph and an alarm function.
IWC reused the Ingenieur though it had been fading into the background, happened before 2005. At that moment,
Four main features within one watch were chased by men, which were exactly the design concept of the original Ingenieur: technical, precise watch making with a good story to tell and a design with a feature of an intentionally vintage touch. The decoration with titanium or ceramics and boldly fitted with a silicon strap is appeared in a large amount of versions. What’s more, we even can find it in the racing paddocks of the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team. With the same precise and delicate design concept, IWC equipped it with a Constant-Force Tourbillon escapement. Nowadays, only few weeks past, without a doubt, a second round of its renaissance will be unveiled with a bright future of development of the brand.