Hublot King Power Tourbillon Senna, Aquanaut Lucé Rainbow Chronograph, Cartier Pebble & Lange Double Split
The Hublot King Power Tourbillon Ayrton Senna Monaco 1984 is one of ten unique pieces built around specific career moments chosen by the Senna family, a flying tourbillon chronograph in 48mm carbon fiber that treats race history as seriously as it treats horology. Patek Philippe’s Aquanaut Lucé Rainbow Chronograph arrived in 2022 as the first complication in the Lucé line, pairing an in-house flyback caliber with gradient baguette sapphires and a 39.9mm rose gold case that sits firmly in men’s sizing regardless of what the collection name implies. The 2022 Cartier Pebble reissues a 1972 London workshop original produced in such small numbers that most collectors never saw one until a 2021 auction result north of 400,000 Swiss francs put the reference on the map. The A. Lange & Söhne Double Split is the watch that defined what post-reunification Lange could do, a dual column wheel rattrapante that extended split-seconds timing to 30 minutes and won the GPHG special jury prize the year it was introduced.
Watches in This Video
| Hublot | Patek Philippe |
|---|---|
| King Power Tourbillon Ayrton Senna Monaco 1984 8mm · Carbon Fiber · Manual-Wind · Flying Tourbillon · Monopusher Chronograph | Aquanaut Lucé Rainbow Chronograph 39.9mm · 18k Rose Gold · Self-Winding Flyback Chronograph · Caliber CH 28-520 |
| Cartier | A. Lange & Söhne |
|---|---|
| Pebble Yellow Gold 8mm · Carbon Fiber · Manual-Wind · Flying Tourbillon · Monopusher Chronograph | Double Split Chronograph 43mm · 18k Rose Gold · Manual-Wind · Double Split Chronograph · Caliber L001.1 · Ref 404.032 |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Hublot King Power Tourbillon Ayrton Senna?
The Hublot King Power Tourbillon Ayrton Senna is a tribute series of ten unique pieces, each dedicated to a specific moment in Senna’s career selected by his family and engraved individually on the case back. The example shown here is the Monaco 1984 piece, commemorating the rain race widely regarded as the performance that announced Senna’s arrival as a generational talent in Formula 1. The watch is built around the manual-wind HUB6300 movement, which combines a flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock with a monopusher column wheel chronograph – a pairing that places it beyond watches carrying a tourbillon purely as a visual element. The 48mm carbon fiber case, brake disc-inspired black ceramic bezel, Nomex strap, and yellow dial accents are drawn directly from motorsport materials and design language. Hublot delivered each piece in a carbon fiber presentation case alongside a replica of the helmet Senna wore in the year tied to that specific watch.
What makes each watch in the Hublot Ayrton Senna tribute series a unique piece?
Hublot produced ten watches in the Ayrton Senna tribute series, but no two are identical – each one documents a different chapter of Senna’s career, from his first Formula 1 test at Donington in 1983 through his final victory at Monaco in 1993. The specific race and year for each piece were chosen by the Senna family and engraved on the individual case back, meaning every watch in the series carries a story that exists on no other piece. Owning a particular example is, in practice, owning the only watch in the world that commemorates that exact moment in that exact form. Hublot also delivered each piece with a replica of the helmet Senna wore in the corresponding year, packaged inside a carbon fiber case – an approach that frames each watch as a historical artifact rather than a numbered production run.
What is the Patek Philippe Aquanaut Lucé Rainbow Chronograph?
The Patek Philippe Aquanaut Lucé Rainbow Chronograph, introduced in 2022, is the first chronograph offered in the Lucé sub-line of the Aquanaut collection. The case measures 39.9mm in 18k rose gold, and Patek Philippe officially lists it as a men’s reference – a designation that reflects its size rather than any repositioning of the collection. Inside is the in-house caliber CH 28-520, a self-winding flyback chronograph with vertical clutch, the same movement architecture used across Patek’s traditional complications range. The bezel carries two concentric rows of baguette-cut stones: an outer row of gradient sapphires arranged across the full color spectrum and an inner row of diamonds – a construction unique to this reference. Baguette sapphire hour markers on the white mother-of-pearl dial mirror the bezel gradient, extending the color transition across the full dial surface.
How does the Patek Philippe Aquanaut Lucé Rainbow Chronograph differ from the rainbow Daytona?
Both watches belong to the gem-set sports category that the Rolex Rainbow Daytona helped establish, but the Aquanaut Lucé Rainbow Chronograph takes a fundamentally different approach to execution. The bezel construction is specific to Patek – an inner row of diamonds sits between the gradient sapphires and the case, acting as a visual buffer that supports color consistency across the full spectrum. No other manufacturer uses this dual-row construction in the same way. The white mother-of-pearl dial produces a softer, more layered result than a black-dial approach, and the gradient baguette hour markers carry the rainbow effect across the dial surface rather than concentrating it at the bezel. The flyback chronograph with vertical clutch gives the watch a mechanical depth that positions it as a complications piece first and a gem-set piece second.
What is the Cartier Pebble and where does it come from?
The Cartier Pebble is a watch that originated from the Cartier London workshop in 1972, during a period when the London branch operated with significant creative independence from the broader Cartier organization. Its defining design element is the tension between a completely round case and a square dial rotated 45 degrees on its axis, producing a diamond shape inside a circle. Roman numerals follow the diagonal orientation of the dial, giving the layout a sense of intentional imbalance that resolves into something harmonious. Cases are believed to have been produced in-house in the Clerkenwell area of London, and because production numbers were extremely small, no two original examples are perfectly identical. Collectors use several names for the watch – pebble, baseball, and turtle – depending on the specific configuration and lug proportions of a given piece.
Why did the Cartier Pebble become a major collector reference, and what is the 2022 reissue?
For most of its history the Cartier Pebble was known only to specialists – original large examples exist in a small number of confirmed pieces, mostly in yellow gold with cream dials, with one documented example in white gold with a black dial. Mainstream collector attention arrived in 2021 when an original Pebble sold at auction for over 400,000 Swiss francs, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate and confirming the watch as a serious collectible. That result drew attention to the scarcity of original supply and the strength of Cartier London provenance as a collector category in its own right. Cartier responded in 2022 with a 50th anniversary reissue – yellow gold, 36mm, round case, rotated square dial, manual-wind caliber 430MC at just over 6mm total thickness – that preserved the original design without modernizing it away from its identity. The reissue introduced the Pebble to collectors who had never seen an original in person, which is where most of the current demand originates.
What is the A. Lange & Söhne Double Split and what makes it historically significant?
The A. Lange & Söhne Double Split, introduced in 2004, extended the split-seconds chronograph concept beyond its traditional 60-second limitation by adding a split function to the minute register as well as the seconds. A conventional rattrapante allows two simultaneous events to be compared within a single minute – after which the secondary hand snaps back and the comparison is lost. The Double Split retains that function but applies the same logic to the minute counter, enabling comparisons of two separate events across up to 30 minutes. At the time of its introduction no other watchmaker had executed this complication, and it received the special jury prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in 2004. The movement, caliber L001.1, uses two column wheels and two flyback functions and is fully visible through the display back, where the architecture communicates its purpose without requiring explanation.
How does the Double Split chronograph mechanism work?
The Double Split runs two independent sets of hands – two chronograph seconds hands and two minute hands – that start in sync when the chronograph is engaged. Pressing the split button freezes one set of hands at the current elapsed time while the other pair continues running, allowing the intermediate time of the first event to be read without interrupting the ongoing measurement. Releasing the split snaps the stopped hands back to rejoin the running hands. Because this logic applies independently to both the seconds and the minute register, two events can be timed and compared across a full 30-minute window rather than being limited to a single minute. The system is driven by two separate column wheels, each governing its own flyback function, and the full mechanism is visible through the open display back – where the layout allows the operation to be followed directly as it runs.
What is the history of A. Lange & Söhne and how does the Double Split fit into the brand’s modern identity?
A. Lange & Söhne was founded in Gläshütte, Germany in 1845 by Ferdinand Adolph Lange and operated as a benchmark of German precision watchmaking until World War II – after which the factory was destroyed, the company was nationalized, and the brand ceased to exist for over four decades. Walter Lange relaunched the company in 1990 following German reunification, rebuilding from scratch with an explicit focus on technical seriousness rather than easing into the market gradually. The 1999 Datograph established the brand’s modern chronograph reputation and, according to the host, pressured major competing houses to begin developing their own in-house calibers rather than continuing to source from third-party suppliers. The Double Split arrived five years later as the next step in that progression, solving a mechanical problem — split-seconds timing beyond 60 seconds — that no other brand had yet addressed. For Lange, the watch was not a statement of revival but a demonstration that the relaunched brand was capable of original technical advances that the industry’s largest names had not yet attempted.