It was 2005 that Hublot originally released the Big Bang. This was at the height of the global economic boom (only to be followed by a huge downfall about three years later), and Hublot was about to become a powerhouse again. The Big Bang quite literally jump-started the once ailing brand. Just a few years before Hublot was purchased by Jean-Claude Biver who saw the brand as an investment and challenge. He had just come from Blancpain and Omega, the former of which was purchased by Biver himself in the early 1980s for about 22,000 Swiss Francs, only to be sold to the Swatch Group in 1992 for about 60 million Swiss Francs.
Biver was credited as having helped revitalize Omega and Blancpain, and his next project was Hublot, which had been dwindling for years after having been founded in the early 1980s. Eventually Hublot was purchased by LVMH in 2008. Hublot marked a new challenge, but nothing that Biver wasn’t prepared for. Unlike the classic approach of Blancpain or the sport and celebrity connections of Omega, Hublot would be something new that emphasized modern materials and design. In a cocoon of Biver’s famously charismatic marketing speak and vision of success the Big Bang watch was born. For 2013 it finally gets a true successor.
The watch features:
- Ceramic case with brushed & polished finishes.
- Brushed/matte finished black ceramic bezel with ridged edges, numbers & indexes are Tungsten filled into recesses in the bezel.
- Case center (edge) lateral black composite resin inserts.
- Matte finished titanium crown has a black rubber center/insert.
- Black dial.
- Applied brushed finished stainless steel “applique” style Index hour markers with luminous fill.
- Brushed finished semi-skeleton stainless steel minute & hour hands with luminous filled tips.
- Semi-skeleton red arrow-head seconds hand with a luminous filled tip.
- Printed minute track with 5 minute Arabic numerals intervals on flat black rim on the outer edge of the dial.
- Immediately recognizable “H” style screws on bezel.
- Date window located at the 3 o’clock position.
- Hublot Caliber HUB 1400, beats at 28,800 vph, composed out of 180 parts, contains 23 Jewels & has an approximate power reserve of 42 hours.
