MB&F LMX – Celebrating 10 years of Legacy Machines
The MB&F LMX is the latest creation from the Genevan based firm. It marks the 10th anniversary of the brand’s Legacy Machine series and upholds the company’s reputation for embracing innovation while encompassing fine watchmaking standards.
In 2005, Max Büsser, having spent many years working within the watch industry, chose to establish his own brand. He was keen to break free from the constraints synonymous with working for a large organisation. He set up his fresh-faced company with a little help from his friends, hence the luxury marque’s moniker, MB&F. Two years later, MB&F released its inaugural model, or to employ MB&F parlance, its first ‘Horological Machine’, the HM1.
The HM1 was styled by the esteemed designer, Eric Giroud. MB&F drew on the expertise of movement engineer Laurent Besse and the celebrated watchmaker, the loveable Peter Speake, co-founder of the fabulous website, The Naked Watchmaker.
Nobody could ever accuse MB&F of plagiarism, the HM1 possessed an almost other-worldly appearance as if created in space by three-eyed aliens. The resultant aesthetic of the model would inevitably polarise opinion, but demonstrated a breathtaking degree of courage on the part of Monsieur Büsser. Those watch aficionados who fell under Büsser’s spell could not get enough of the brand’s creations. Indeed, the following year (2008), the Maison released the HM2 and thereafter, the HM3, HM4 Thunderbolt, etc. Büsser’s creative strategy proved inspired with the brand attracting legions of followers drawn to the originality of each composition.
However, having found an alchemist’s recipe book, creating a series of popular models, Büsser, clearly a risk-taker, decided to place a substantial number of chips on red when he launched the Legacy Machine No.1 in 2011. It could have led to the brand disenfranchising its many fans, but it didn’t.
The LM1 looked like no other watch, classical but with an MB&F twist. A prominent, wishbone-style bridge arced upwards as it approached the centre of the dial, virtually kissing the inside of a domed sapphire crystal. The aforementioned arcing bridge supported a balance, adjacent to which two independent dials displayed the time in two different locations. Lastly, the watch was endowed with a power-reserve indicator that resembled the throttle controls of a passenger plane. Possibly borne out of craziness, the watch was simply brilliant. Indeed, it won two prestigious GPHG awards in 2012.
The LM1 became a darling of the watch collecting community and attracted much favourable coverage from the watch press. Clearly inspired by this success, MB&F released further models, including the LM2, LM101, LM Perpetual, LM FlyingT, LM Thunderdome, a collaboration with H. Moser & Cie and, last year, the LM Perpetual EVO.
Since the advent of the LM1 in 2011, Büsser has worked with a number of ‘friends’ and repeatedly shown a talent for spotting, well, other talented individuals. The Swiss marque has continued to release further Horological Machines while simultaneously investing in the HM’s alter ego, the LMs.
Now, MB&F is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Legacy Machine and has marked this milestone with a new release, the LMX. The Maison has used ‘X’, a Roman numeral in this instance, to reference the model’s 10th birthday.
The two chaste dials, similar to those fitted to the LM1, are now angled and seem to look away from each other, reminiscent of a squabbling married couple. The balance is still positioned centre stage, but now features masselottes set inboard, mitigating air turbulence and thereby aiding precision. The domed sapphire crystal makes a repeat performance, while the power-reserve indicator returns, albeit this time it’s a highly unusual, super-sexy ‘hemispherical 7-day’ design. The gears, located dial-side, are recessed within the dial surface, conferring a cleaner look. Lastly, consistent with all MB&F watches, the movement is beautifully finished, worthy of the term ‘Haute Horlogerie’.
In my professional role, I witnessed the birth of the LM1 and have followed its evolution over the last 10 years. Quite often, having sworn undying love for one model, I have then been seduced by its successor. The LMX is my favourite model to date, but based on past experience I doubt I will remain horologically monogamous for too long.
The brand’s press release
In October 2011, people thought they knew what MB&F stood for. Four Horological Machines had been launched, each one more audacious than the last. MB&F founder Maximilian Büsser decided it was time to do something different – again. How does one go about disrupting a habit of iconoclasm? By turning to history, but not a history that we recognised. The MB&F Horological Machines came from an imagined future, so it was only natural that the Legacy Machines drew from an imagined past. Expressed differently: what would MB&F have created a century ago, during the golden age of watchmaking?
Round cases, lacquered dials… and “flying” balance wheels
As always with MB&F, the Legacy Machine No1 movement was the result of collaboration – in this case with two exceptional Friends, two horology stars as talented as they are different: Jean-François Mojon, known for his innovative engineering, and Kari Voutilainen, a living legend of classic watchmaking.
LM1 featured a round case – a first for MB&F – along with white lacquered dials, blued hands, and a hallucinatory “flying” balance wheel, plucked from its expected rear-mounted location and suspended like a sky-hovering extra-terrestrial visitor, oscillating under a domed crystal. While Horological Machines 1 through 4 were exuberant flights of imagination, Legacy Machine N°1 was a triumph of reimagination. By harnessing the design conventions of traditional watchmaking to form this singularly defiant configuration of a watch movement, LM1 turned out to be MB&F’s most subversive creation since the company’s inception in 2005.
The mesmeric spectacle of the suspended balance became a conceptual and mechanical leitmotiv that defined the Legacy Machine collection — illustrating how a watch could simultaneously be a part of and apart from traditional watchmaking.
An award-winning, ground-breaking collection
Subsequent Legacy Machines followed this blueprint of brilliant unorthodoxy: with LMX, an impressive series of no less than EIGHT world-premiere calibres. Conceived with another exceptionally talented Friend, Stephen McDonnell, LM Perpetual (2015) brought about a fundamental reengineering of the revered perpetual calendar complication. LM FlyingT (2019) embodied a novel vision of feminine watchmaking — fierce yet elegant, stark yet complex. LM Thunderdome (2019), developed with multi-axis tourbillon expert Eric Coudray, set a new world record with the dizzying speed of its TriAx mechanism. In parallel to these prestigious collaborations, MB&F began conceiving its own movements during this decade; the LMX engine is the sixth fully conceived by MB&F’s in-house engineering team, a considerable achievement for a brand born in the new millennium.
Many did not realise in 2011 how risky this was, but MB&F took a chance on its fledgling brand identity by introducing a Machine that leaned closer to the aesthetic milieu of almost every other watch company out there. Comparing an MB&F to other timepieces was now possible… But great risk often comes with great reward. The Legacy Machine collection has received widespread acclaim over the years, chief among them four awards from the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, the industry’s ultimate accolade.
Have Legacy Machines changed the MB&F Horological lab of 2011? Profoundly. When LM1 surprised the watchmaking world 10 years ago, industry experts predicted that MB&F would radically shift its entire production (and sales) to the more consensual aesthetics offered by Legacy Machines. That did not happen: the unconventional Horological Machines continue to represent an essential part of MB&F’s production… but 10 years later, watch collectors have naturally also embraced the more classic-minded Legacy Machines – which have gained their own very significant place. In 2021 MB&F continues to evolve in both directions, seemingly quite different, but always with a fierce sense of independence and creativity.
THE LEGACY OF A DECADE
In the MB&F universe, X has a special significance, based on the Roman numeral for 10. It signals a 10th anniversary, like the HM3 FrogX (2020) marking a decade of the totemic HM3, or HMX (2015), which headlined the 10th year of MB&F. But X is more than an ancient alternative to the Arabic numeral 10. In algebra, X is the unsolved variable; in cartography, X is the desired destination. X represents the indescribable, the unexplainable and the uncategorisable; it symbolises everything we do not know – yet.
PRESENTING LMX, CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF LEGACY MACHINES
Back in October 2011, MB&F had just launched Legacy Machine N°1, the first creation of a new collection, alongside the existing Horological Machines; one creative lab, two interpretations of time-telling. LMX returns to the earliest encounter with the Legacy Machine collection, utilising the same expression comprising a central flying balance wheel and two dials, although everything else is different.
TWO INDEPENDENT TIME ZONES ON TILTED DIALS
Those familiar with MB&F’s very first Legacy Machine will instinctively know how LMX operates. Two dials of stretched white lacquer, each with its own display of hours and minutes. The dial on the right is set by the crown at the 2 o’clock position, which bears an engraving of the MB&F battle-axe and also winds the movement. The crown at 10 o’clock, engraved with a globe to acknowledge the potential use of a second time zone, sets the time of the left dial. Unlike the first Legacy Machines however, both dials are tilted at an angle – a more complex feature present on the most recent Legacy Machines, requiring the transfer of energy from horizontal to vertical planes thanks to conical gears.
APPARENT MECHANICS UNDER A SAPPHIRE CRYSTAL DOME
While the first few Legacy Machines took a selective approach to what was showcased between dial plate and sapphire crystal dome, later models such as LM Perpetual, LM FlyingT and LM Thunderdome were more open and demonstrative about their mechanical prowess. LMX follows this latter approach, revealing functional elements such as the battle-axe-shaped escapement bridge and gear-train components. Three large wheels are particularly visible: placed next to each winding crown, two are set in motion when setting the time on the corresponding time display, while the gear at 6 o’clock is the common seconds’ wheel.
Of particular note is the new bespoke balance wheel, a 13.4mm behemoth with inertia blocks that marks a departure from the more traditional screwed balances and offers greater accuracy to the watchmaker in regulating the heart of LMX. Other refinements include the polished arms of the straight bridges exposed on the dial plate, manually finished to impart a curved, or bercé, profile on their upper surfaces.
HEMISPHERICAL 7-DAY POWER RESERVE INDICATOR
In another nod to the world-first vertical power reserve indicator of Legacy Machine No1, LMX builds on this slice of MB&F history, with a completely novel three-dimensional display that showcases the engine’s impressive seven days (168 hours) of power reserve. In this evolved display, there is the option to select between two modes of counting down the power reserve.
Two markers are positioned on opposite sides of a hemisphere; one framed by an arched scale numbered 1 to 7, another with a scale showing the days of the week.
This complex and completely novel interplay of components is given an additional level of intricacy, by the rotation of the entire power-reserve display itself. This allows wearers to choose their preferred mode of power-reserve indication: by continuing to wind the battle-axe crown even after the power reserve is fully replenished, wearers can adjust the orientation of the indication in order to make the day-of-the-week or numeric scale more visible when LMX is on the wrist.
SYMMETRICAL MOVEMENT CONSTRUCTION
Like a perfectly balanced X, the engine of LMX is deeply symmetrical – not only dial-side but also as observed through the sapphire case back, revealing the three barrels placed evenly around the centre, accentuated by the sunray pattern of the Côtes de Genève finishing. A treat for those who can read the language of watch movements, who can discern expert intent and refined purpose behind the placement of each component.
The X in LMX is more than just a symbol for symmetry, or another way to indicate the numeral 10. LMX is the crossroads where the first and second decades of the Legacy Machine Collection meet.
LMX is available in two limited launch editions:
– 18 pieces in 18k red gold with black NAC treatment on plates and bridges;
– 33 pieces in grade 5 titanium with green CVD treatment on plates and bridges.
Further reading