Bremont
Bremont H-4 Hercules Pays Tribute to Herculean Contribution to Aviation
The new watch takes its name from the H-4 Hercules, a crazily large aircraft that was originally designed to carry allied tanks over the Atlantic during the Second World War.
Back in the 1940s, Hughes didn’t have access to all the computing power of the modern world to build his craft. Not only that – because aluminium was scarce, and weight was an issue, most of the construction was done in wood. Years passed and critics of the project in the US Congress said this giant plane had no chance of getting off the ground. Some gave it nicknames like the Flying Lumberyard, and the one that stuck, the Spruce Goose. Hughes disliked the name, partly because the plane was actually made of birch, not spruce, but mainly because he was obsessed with proving his critics wrong and building a plane with size and power never seen before.
Although it never made it to production, the one-off plane’s short-but-glorious flight won many hearts, and it was later declared a national treasure by the United States House of Representatives.
Giles English, Bremont’s Co-Founder said: “Hughes’s obsession with detail and striving for perfection is evident everywhere in this aircraft. The H-4 wasn’t so much built as crafted, its flawless silver surface, devoid of rivets and bumps synonymous with 1940’s aviation, shows that this aircraft was a masterpiece of design and manufacture.”
The time-and-date Bremont H-4 Hercules has an automatic winding rotor that uses some original birchwood veneer from the Spruce Goose. The wood was removed from the plane during a process of essential preservation work to the fuselage. This veneer was shipped to the UK and applied to the watch’s tungsten winding rotor – shaped, we would expect no less, like Spruce Goose propeller blades.
The Bremont H-4 Hercules is limited to 300 stainless steel watches, 75 in rose gold and 75 in platinum pieces. Prices start at £9,495 and a percentage of proceeds will go to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum to help take care of the Spruce Goose.
Movement
25-jewel Bremont BWC/02 automatic movement is based on the original proprietary BWC/01 built in partnership with La Joux Perret
Case
43mm case in either stainless steel, rose gold or platinum
Strap
Brown alligator strap with pin buckle to match case material
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