Things could be worse: a sunny summer day, a speedy convertible and a cool IWC watch. The car is the Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster. The watch is also an AMG, of sorts: the Ingenieur Automatic AMG Black Series Ceramic, introduced in 2013 in honor of IWC’s sponsorship of the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula 1 team. It seems fitting that we test the AMG watch while test driving an AMG car, so here we are at AMG headquarters in Affalterbach, Germany, ready to take car and watch for a spin.
The metallic brown of the dial contrasts beautifully with the matte black ceramic case and the shiny black ceramic bezel, which look every bit as high-tech as the five eye-catching screws with special heads on the front of the IWC Replica. The warm color of the dial, the beige-orange luminous material on the indices and hands and the leather-inlay strap add a very special touch to this otherwise technical-looking watch – like a brown leather sofa in front of an exposed-concrete wall.The SLS’s interior was designed in the same mode: the air vents and gear-selector lever are milled from aluminum and are inspired by jet engines and throttle controls. The rest of the interior boasts plenty of plush upholstery.Now it’s time for our test drive. The IWC Replica Watches convertible top disappears behind the seats and a roaring eight-cylinder fanfare trumpets from the tailpipes when we press the start button. Wow! We forget all about the Ingenieur’s quiet ticking when we hear that. Even the 1,000-watt surround-sound system from Bang & Olufsen becomes a trifling matter, but we switch it on anyway.
Of course, unlike cars, watches are judged not by how fast they go but by how precisely. After our ride, with the help of a timing machine, we find the Ingenieur to be precise indeed. With an average daily gain of just 1.8 seconds, the Cheap IWC Replica Ingenieur AMG comes quite close to achieving optimal performance. The greatest deviation among positions, six seconds, is more than acceptable. The amplitude of the balance is fairly stable between flat and hanging positions.At the moment, though, in the blazing sunshine, there’s no need to worry about luminosity. We’ve found the switch to operate the car’s adaptive adjustable suspension. We choose “sport plus” and steer through the curves at breakneck speed. The suspension in this setting is so hard that the Ingenieur is challenged to cushion the impacts with its serpentine rotor bridge, designed to absorb shocks. We’re also pleased that despite this watch’s diameter of 46 mm, its strap clings as closely and as comfortably to our wrist as does the racing seat of the SLS to its driver. Nothing presses uncomfortably against the wrist, and the strap’s rubber inner surface feels as soft and supple as the roadster’s Alcantara upholstery.
The movement is made in house. It’s the Caliber 80110, which IWC Replica Watches introduced at the time of the relaunch of the Ingenieur collection in 2005. It incorporates the Pellaton pawl winding system and Triovis fine adjustment. The movement is scantily embellished; the surfaces aren’t polished and the edges aren’t beveled.
