By Roberta Naas
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October 16, 2018
Roger Dubuis and Lamborghini: Raging Mechanics
Many of today’s watchmakers align themselves with the world of motorsports, often linking with a car brand, a race or a racing team. Roger Dubuis, however, takes the autosports affiliation to new heights with its Excalibur watches co-created with Lamborghini engineers.This past weekend at the DreamRacing track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, an elite group of invited guests got to enter into a unique experience with Swiss luxury watchmaker, Roger Dubuis. In a “Raging Mechanics” event, over the course of two days, guests not only drove Lamborghini supercars and received lessons on driving on wet surfaces and drifting, but also drove Lamborghini racecars on the track.The exhilarating weekend marked the one-year anniversary of the unique partnership between Roger Dubuis, a brand that “Dares to be Rare,” and Lamborghini. Throughout its “Hit the Grid” days at the track, Roger Dubuis showcased its incredibly bold and daring Aventador S watches designed in cooperation with Lamborghini’s engineers, and “powered by Raging Mechanics.”With its own watchmaking factory in Geneva, where extensive research and development, as well as watchmaking, takes place, Roger Dubuis continually pushes the envelop to find new and unique materials for its timepieces, inventive new calibers and daring designs. During its relatively short lifetime, the brand has already produced 35 in-house-made calibers and created patented world premier mechanics that define it as a leader in out-of-the-box thinking. Such is the case with the newest Lamborghini Aventador S watches.In fact, not only do the Excalibur Aventador S timepieces house raging mechanics, they, along with the Excalibur Spider Pirelli watches, boast something truly unique: straps made using winning Pirelli tire rubber. In fact, it was in early 2017 that Roger Dubuis formed a partnership with Pirelli to create straps using winning tires only for its Spider Pirelli line. The concept was extended to the Aventador S collection when the brand formed a partnership with Lamborghini later that year. Each strap is engraved with the number of the winning tires and comes with a certificate of authenticity, so that the wearer has a piece of history on the wrist. Roger Dubuis Excalibur Aventador S Blue. $210,000.In fact, during the event this past weekend, Roger Dubuis offered customers who were racing the Lamborghini racecars the option of having their own custom strap made for a Roger Dubuis Excalibur watch of their choosing – using the Pirelli tires on the car they have driven on the track.Roger Dubuis Excalibur Aventador SAs mentioned, as a result of the collaboration between super watch brand Roger Dubuis and the supercar brand, Lamborghini, Roger Dubuis has created the Aventador S collection, inspired by the lines and the engine of the Aventador S. Because both Roger Dubuis and Lamborghini are known for their abilities to create precision instruments using cutting-edge materials and engineering, the relationship between the brands is incredibly synergistic. Roger Dubuis Excalibur Aventador S Blue. $210,000.For car lovers and watch lovers, it is difficult to not like the new Excalibur Aventador S watches that are pretty much the embodiment of high-tech, high-mech at its finest.“Fine watchmaking is boring. We didn’t just want a co-partnership agreement where we put a logo on a watch. We have common values and we wanted their engineers to work with our watchmakers to come with new innovation to offer new experiences to the customer,” says Dorothee Henrio, International Marketing Director for Roger Dubuis. “We are a serial innovator. We know Roger Dubuis is not a watch for everyone, and we love that fact. You either fall in love with Roger Dubuis, or you hate us, but at least we are able to create emotion via an extravagant watch.”Not only are watch collectors drawn to Roger Dubuis for its aesthetics and superb mechanics, but also because of the rarity of the brand. Every single watch is created in an edition of either a unique piece, or a series of 8, 28 or 88.The new Aventador S watches feature all-new Roger Dubuis movements. The hand-wound 312-part Duotor mechanical caliber RD103SQ is equipped with highly technical twin double sprung balance wheels (hence the name Duotor) and a stability system. It offers hours, minutes, jumping seconds and 40 hours of power reserveThe collection is barely even a year old, and consists of some pretty impressive pieces, including the Excalibur Aventador S Carbon watch, which, thanks to the C-SMC carbon case (using the same technology as the Lamborghini cars) and skeletonized to movement, is an ultra-light timepiece. Additionally, a host of boldly colored and finished Excalibur Aventador S timepieces are offered, crafted in titanium, black titanium, with multi-layered carbon, or carbon bezels, and more. Every Excalibur Aventador S watch, like all Roger Dubuis watches, carry the coveted Hallmark of Geneva certification attesting to its superb finishings.Even more exciting is the fact that during the event in Las Vegas, Roger Dubuis hinted at an exciting new unveiling relating to the Lamborghini relationship coming soon. We’ll keep you up to speed on that. Roberta Naas, DuPont Registry Watch Editor
