To celebrate 140 years of Mercedes-Benz, IWC Schaffhausen unveils a Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet in a limited edition of 140 pieces. A watch that condenses more than two decades of partnership between the two houses and introduces one of the most significant developments in the IWC perpetual calendar: adjustment now possible in both directions, directly from the crown.
The shared history of IWC Schaffhausen and Mercedes-Benz rests on a common fascination with engineering, performance and precision. In 2026, as Mercedes-Benz celebrates the 140 years of the invention of the automobile, the two houses extend their dialogue with a watch conceived as a tribute to this shared culture of innovation.
Named Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz, the new reference IW329603 is produced in only 140 pieces, symbolically one for each year elapsed since 1886.
Two decades of shared engineering
The partnership between IWC and Mercedes-AMG dates back to 2004. Since 2013, the Swiss manufacture has also been the Official Engineering Partner of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team.
Over the years, this collaboration has gone beyond simple co-branding logic. Watches inspired by Formula 1, editions devoted to the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, automotive experiences and motorsport events: the two brands have gradually built a common territory around technical performance and design.
This new Big Pilot arrives in a particular context. This year Mercedes-Benz is rolling out its initiative “140 Years. 140 Places.”, during which three new S-Class cars travel to 140 destinations on six continents, for a total journey of more than 50,000 kilometres.
A Big Pilot with deliberately classic codes
The watch has a stainless steel case of 42 mm, alternating brushed and polished surfaces.
The black dial plays on a relatively sober aesthetic, lifted by solid gold appliqués and golden hands. The minute railway track, printed in white, reinforces legibility and keeps the instrument DNA proper to the Pilot’s Watches collection.
The sapphire crystal case back introduces a more unexpected historical reference: it takes up the first joint logo that appeared after the merger, in 1926, of Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz & Cie. It then combined Benz’s laurel wreath with Daimler’s three-pointed star.
A particularly elegant way of linking the watch not only to the 140 years of the automobile, but also to the centenary of the rapprochement of the two companies that would give birth to Mercedes-Benz.
The perpetual calendar finally becomes reversible
But the main interest of this edition lies inside the case.
IWC has been working on mechanical calendars since 1985, the year in which the manufacture presented the famous perpetual calendar developed by the watchmaker Kurt Klaus.
With the new Perpetual Calendar ProSet, IWC profoundly revisits this complication.
The principle comes down to one particularly concrete advance: the calendar can now be set forwards but also backwards, from a single position of the crown.
An evolution that may seem almost obvious to the user, but which constitutes a genuine mechanical challenge.
Most traditional perpetual calendars indeed impose relatively strict setting procedures, with corrector pushers or specific sequences. The ProSet system removes these constraints: no additional pusher, no change of crown position and no complex setting menu is needed.
The module rests entirely on gears and is the subject of four patents. To produce certain parts with particularly complex geometries, IWC uses the LIGA process, a microfabrication technology combining lithography and electroforming.
In a world where mechanical sophistication can sometimes translate into sophistication of use, IWC here takes the opposite stance: making complexity disappear for the person wearing the watch.
A moon phase accurate for over a millennium
The perpetual calendar information is distributed across four counters.
The date appears at 3 o’clock, the month at 6 o’clock and the day of the week at 9 o’clock. At 12 o’clock sits the moon phase.
Thanks to a new gear ratio, the latter accumulates only one day of deviation after 1,040 years. The Double Moon® system also allows the moon to be shown correctly for observers in the northern and southern hemispheres.
Another signature of IWC perpetual calendars: the year displayed in four digits, placed between 7 and 8 o’clock.
Calibre 82665 and Pellaton winding
The watch is powered by the manufacture calibre IWC 82665.
It notably incorporates a nickel-phosphorus escapement and a silicon hairspring. The Pellaton bidirectional automatic winding system is reinforced by ceramic components and offers a power reserve of 60 hours.
The Big Pilot’s Watch is delivered on a black rubber strap, fitted with the EasX-CHANGE® system, allowing the strap to be changed without tools.
When the complication becomes simplicity
This anniversary edition naturally finds its place in a long series of collaborations between IWC and Mercedes-Benz: chronographs dedicated to Mercedes-AMG, watches of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One team and Big Pilot editions inspired by the G-Class.
It nonetheless stands apart through its message.
Rather than seeking only to transpose the aesthetic codes of the automobile into watchmaking, IWC and Mercedes-Benz choose here to celebrate what they share, probably, most deeply: the ability to turn considerable technical complexity into a simple experience for the user.
At a time when technological luxury sometimes tends to multiply functions, true progress perhaps lies precisely here: making innovation almost invisible.
Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz
Reference: IW329603
Case: stainless steel, 42 mm
Movement: IWC manufacture calibre 82665
Complication: ProSet perpetual calendar
Power reserve: 60 hours
Strap: black rubber with EasX-CHANGE® system
Limited edition: 140 pieces
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