MB&F LEGACY MACHINE X

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 N^o1 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.

Technical Specifications

Movement Basics

Pricing