Hands-On With The King Power Unico All Carbon

Last week, I wrote about the Royal Oak Offshore, the first oversized sports watch. Naturally, I thought I should tackle another powerhouse of the category, Hublot’s King Power Unico All Carbon.

Hublot started turning heads back in 2005, when Jean-Claude Biver re-energized the brand by fusing materials and introducing bigger and bigger watches. Their efforts, recognized with Big Bang, culminated with the gigantic, 48mm King Power in 2009.

Here’s one of my favourite iterations from the line, the King Power Unico All Carbon. Produced in 2010, the King Power is just as bold as its little brother, the Big Bang, but features a more masculine design, with a carbon fibre case and a rubber strap, both in black.

The best part of it all? Its ultra-modern exterior is reflected inside, with the in-house designed and manufactured HUB1240 calibre, otherwise known as the Unico. Not bad for such a young company, which also manufactures its own tourbillons and minute repeaters as well. Other very well established brands have only recently started to create their own watch movements.

The huge 48mm case is made from carbon fibre, black in colour but with the texture of the carbon weave running all over it makes it a little more interesting, In keeping with its new “fusion” ideology, the watch features a carbon bezel held in place with PVD black titanium screws. The dial is actually sapphire crystal with the hour markers applied to it. This exposes the date wheel running around edge of the display, and the Unico movement behind it.

Personally I love this watch, and my appreciation for Hublot continues to grow with each new release. I was fortunate enough to visit the manufacture in Nyon Geneva, and I appreciate that it’s a young team, from a young brand, marking its own path in the industry.

It’s a shame some like to write them off and say they copy this or that, which I disagree with. When you research the brand, the people, and really look at the models, they have several icon’s in the making. They create models and variations to suit all types of collectors, and this is one of the reasons the brand is growing from strength to strength.

Under the leadership of new CEO Ricardo Guadalupe, I hope the brand continues to enjoy experimenting with new materials and creating timepieces that we have fun wearing.

Photo Credit: Alex Rose. For more information, please visit the official Hublot website.