A Case For Hublot

In the recent years it seems like Hublot has received a very bad reputation in the watch collector community. With my most formative years in the watch business being the early 2000s, this came as a huge surprise to me.

Over the past decade or so, I kind of fell out of love with watches and they were just a job for me. My love was rekindled over the last few years, so I missed the huge hype blowup for sports Rolex models, Royal Oaks and the Nautilus. What I also missed was all the hatred towards Hublot.

It seems there are a few very vocal watch influencers that rag on Hublot mainly for the price of their watches and for the fact that some models do not contain an in-house movement. While these are valid reasons, they are not fully correct. Let’s take a little trip back in history and explore how all this started.

Now sitting back in the mid 2000s, arguably the most popular watch was the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore. It was also the watch our company sold the most of and to be honest my favorite watch series. The Offshore was a bulky watch, which was in favor at the time, with many models coming on a rubber strap. A few things to remember about the Offshore was that they were typically around the $15,000 price range for steel and used a non Audemars Piguet in-house movement. Instead the base movement was manufactured by Jaeger LeCoultre. Sound familiar?

Out of nowhere it seems, Hublot came out with the Big Bang. The first few variants were steel or rose gold cased watches with a ceramic bezel, carbon print dial and a rubber strap. These watches also featured a date and chronograph function. If anything, you could argue they used the Royal Oak Offshore formula to bring a popular watch to market, but a lot of elements were already in Hublot’s playbook, like a luxury watch on a rubber strap.



To me being such a huge Offshore fanboy, the Big Bang had a lot to prove for me to not just brush it under the rug as an Offshore clone. When we first started getting Big Bangs in stock, I had the opportunity to wear them for extended periods of time. The watch felt vastly different to me then the Offshore, it honestly felt like its own watch and was a quality product. Most people still hate the folding “AP” clasp that Audemars Piguet used on their Offshores of that era, but to me they were extremely comfortable, maybe my wrist is shaped weird? So my biggest gripe with the Big Bang was the clasp and rubber strap were just not as comfortable as the Offshore’s clasp and strap. Otherwise, the Big Bang offered more value for the money than a comparable Offshore.

So now that we’ve gone back in time and compared mid 2000s Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshores and Hublot Big Bangs, we can see that both were chunky watches, available on rubber straps, with non in-house movements, using advanced materials that cost north of $10,000. For some reason the stigma of Hublot still only offering non in-house movements and costing an arm and a leg is still present, while it faded for Audemars Piguet.

Eight years later in 2013, Hublot introduced their in-house Unico chronograph movement for Big Bang models. Note this was years before Audemars Piguet put an in-house movement in their Royal Oak Offshores. The Unico also boasted a flyback feature for the chronograph and also a three day power reserve. So now, the debate about Hublot not having an in-house had been resolved.



The next issue put against Hublot was the cost of their watches. Now let me be fully honest here, my favorite brands are Audemars Piguet and IWC. My main watch rotation consists of an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Juan Pablo Montoya titanium (JLC base movement), IWC Big Pilot Perpetual Top Gun and an IWC GST Aquatimer 2000 titanium (ETA base movement). Let's look at sports model watches with in-house calibers from Hublot, IWC, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe, let’s see where the value lies.

For Hublot, let’s pick the Big Bang Unico Titanium 44mm ref. 421.NX.1170.RX. This Big Bang has a 44mm titanium case with a skeleton dial movement and comes on a rubber strap. The movement is an in-house HUB1280 Unico movement with flyback chronograph, 72 hours of power reserve and the suggested retail price is $19,900.



IWC will be a little more difficult to compare since they really don’t have a sports model chronograph. Let’s use the newly updated Ingenieur Automatic 40 titanium ref. IW328904. This is a 40mm titanium cased watch with an integrated titanium bracelet. The in-house caliber 32111 offers 120 hours of power reserve and lacks the chronograph function of the Big Bang Unico. The suggested retail price is $14,600.



For Audemars Piguet, lets choose the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph titanium ref. 26420IO.OO.A009CA.01. This Offshore is 43mm crafted out of titanium and comes on a rubber strap. It uses Audemars Piguet’s in-house caliber 4401 with flyback chronograph, 70 hours of power reserve and a retail price of $42,200.



Finally for Patek Philippe we’ll take the Nautilus ref. 5990/1A. This 40.5mm stainless steel Nautilus on a stainless steel bracelet uses Patek’s in-house 5990/1A-011 movement featuring a flyback chronograph, travel time, 55 hour power reserve and a retail price of $68,600.



When you look at these for comparable watches, the retail prices obviously show the Ingenieur and Big Bang are by far the best value, with the Ingenieur being the least expensive but lacking a few features found on the Big Bang. Of course we are comparing retail prices and it’s no secret that the Big Bang and Ingenieur can be had under retail, while the AP and Patek go for far more than their retail prices. Of course AP and Patek, and to some extent IWC have a very long and storied history, which plays into the prices they can ask as well. Just looking at value for money, it has to be said that the Big Bang Unico is a great value.

Now as a bonus reason for some peoples negative view on Hublot is the amount of limited edition watches they put out. To this day, my favorite series of watches are the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore limited edition releases. For the most part, these watches came out in the range of 2005 to 2015. They comprised of watches made for Arnold Schwarzenegger, to Jay-Z, to F1 drivers and everyone in between.

The standout in this series of watches to me is just the shear difference of design and materials used in these watches. The End of Days was one of the first large released watches to use PVD coating, the Alinghi watches used forged carbon cases and bezels, etc… My favorite and a grail watch of mine until I recently acquired one was the Juan Pablo Montoya. This watch was the first Royal Oak Offshore to feature the newer case design now seen in current Offshores, as well as a fusion of materials like titanium, carbon fiber and band material taken from the driver’s suits. This watch was even designed with then relatively unknown Richard Mille.



Why all the talk about Offshore limited editions in an article defending Hublot? Well, Audemars Piguet has kind of left the limited edition train at the station. From time to time, you do get a limited piece, but it’s typically not as out there as they were in the past. Hublot has gladly picked up this torch and has done an amazing job with it.

Just a few examples are the insane MP-05 LaFerrari they created with Ferrari that features an unheard of 50 day power reserve. Hublot also teamed up with famed Japanese designer Takashi Murakami to release the Sapphire Rainbow, which features Murakami’s famed flower design with almost 500 precious stones. Hublot even teamed up with Manchester United to release a limited edition that features blades of grass from Manchester’s stadium, Old Trafford, on the dial. These are just such interesting pieces, that I’m not sure why their creation would turn people away from the band.



The last thing to mention is Hublot’s belief in a fusion of materials in their watches. Like a lot of higher end watch brands, Hublot has used such high end materials as platinum, gold and titanium. They have also used high tech materials like ceramic and carbon fiber. Hublot has even started using sapphire for cases, which is really only reserved for the pinnacle of brands, such as Richard Mille. Hublot has gone so far from the norm to even use concrete on one of their watches. This is true innovation in my opinion.



I stuck with the Big Bang series for this article, because let’s be honest, that is the lineup of watches Hublot is most known for currently. Also the Big Bang provides a great measuring stick to compare to similar watches from other luxury watch brands.

I feel like I’ve looked at all the arguments against Hublot and provided a rather fair and unbiased opinion on each. Would I wear a Hublot? Of course, the Unicos are great looking watches and boast a robust in-house movement. Do I own a Hublot? No, but my wife does have a Big Bang All Black 41mm. Would I buy a Hublot? I see no reason not to, but I do prefer to have a small rotation of watches that I will wear often.