Montblan Ultra Light timepiece
Montblan Ultra Light
Montblanc TimeWalker Pythagore Ultra-Light Concept is the brand’s nod of appreciation to its Ambassador and Chinese professional badminton player, Lin Dan
Lin Dan has completed the “Super Grand Slam”, winning all nine major titles in the badminton world – Olympic Games, World Championships, World Cup, Thomas Cup, Sudirman Cup, Super Series Masters Finals, All England Open, Asian Games, and Asian Championships – the only player to achieve this feat. He is also the winner of five World Championship titles.
Named “Super Dan” by his fans, the 33-year-old athlete is known for his relentless pursuit of excellence and perfection, as well as for his incredible energy, spirit and sense of style. Lin Dan became a Montblanc Ambassador for Mainland China in 2014 and has become the inspiration behind a number of innovative developments in the TimeWalker Collection.
This concept timepiece is ultra-light, resistant and robust — the perfect qualities in a timepiece for active men like Lin Dan, who likes an extremely light and comfortable watch for both work and play. The Maison’s engineers have worked on a combination of black DLC titanium for the horns and ITR²®Kevlar®/Carbon elements for the middle case, caseback, bezel and crown, making the new watch one of the lightest mechanical timepieces in the world – a mere 14.88 grams.
ITR²®, otherwise known as Innovative, Technical, Revolutionary Resin, a composite material charged with carbon nanotubes, is extremely difficult to manufacture, with only a handful of specialists able to make watch cases out of it. It is eight times lighter than steel and four times lighter than titanium. Montblanc continues to innovate with this outstanding material by combining it, for the first time, with Kevlar®/carbon, a highly resistant synthetic fibre, to reach utmost robustness, creating a world première in case-making materials.
The sporty and virile appearance of this ultra high-performance case is reinforced by alternating matt and satin-finishing as well as by the red circle made of ITR²®, which echoes the colour of Lin Dan’s national flag.
The small seconds subdial at six o’clock has been skeletonised for additional lightness and transparency. This anthracite subdial has been crafted out of super-light anodized aluminium and applied directly to the titanium mainplate, along with its elegant red-tipped Minerva arrow for increased legibility. Other details include an engraving at eight o’clock of the five stars from the five most important championships of the Badminton’s Grand Slam, an engraving at three o’clock of the two stars from the two rounds of the Badminton’s Grand Slam won by Lin Dan, a minute track that has been etched directly onto the mainplate with black dots framed in grey for the five-minute markers and black anodized aluminium and skeletonized lance-shaped hands.
The Ultra-Light Concept is equipped with the new Montblanc manually-wound Calibre MB M62.48, featuring the hours, minutes, small seconds with a 50-hour power reserve. The Montblanc Calibre MB M62.48 is the modern-day interpretation of the historical Minerva movement that was designed in 1943.
The bridges have been given a three-dimensional effect with alternating satin and grained finishes, while the other components have been hand-chamfered, hand-polished and hand-satin finished.
