News Of The Week by The Fourth Wheel

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. In an uncharacteristic move, I start this week with a look at the watches worn on the red carpet at the Oscars, but don’t worry. We are talking about the inside baseball of teasing unreleased watches, and I explain why Omega can be a lot more upfront about theirs than Jaeger-LeCoultre (but why it’s also less fun).

The main item today is the news of Dominique Renaud’s new watch, the one hertz Pulse60, which also heralds the arrival of a new brand, a new umbrella company and a number of mildly confusing acronyms. At the heart of it, however, is a real genius doing some really complicated and fundamental things with escapement architecture and other such heartland geek-fodder. The Pulse60 launches in three variants, and I promised I would provide some pictures, so here you go:

I also talk about Greubel Forsey’s final chapter for the sports-adjacent Balancier Convexe S2 - and what might replace it. There are new watches from Rado, Sarpaneva, Girard-Perregaux and Kollokium that are absolutely worthy of your time but which I sadly ran out of room to cover in any detail whatsoever - links below - and last but not least I give a minute to the worrying - if only in a fairly niche capacity - news that historical observatory trials data, the calculations by which chonometry prizes were awarded in Neuchatel and Geneva in the mid 20th century could be… completely wrong. This is Velociphile’s scoop and I urge you to read the full story on his Substack.

This Friday I will be reviewing the Ming Starfield, a watch with many talking points, but none more obvious or divisive than the design of its bracelet. You’ll find that in your inboxes as usual at 10:10 UK time. Until then!

Links discussed in today’s episode:

* Rado True Round Les Couleurs x Le Corbusier

* Kollokium Projekt 02 B

* Greubel Forsey Convexe

* Sarpaneva Firehorse

* Pointless Complication

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you back here next week for more.

Chris

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. A slow week this week - we are in the ‘news limbo’ generated ahead of Watches & Wonders, wherein exhibitors are not permitted to launch anything new from March 3rd onwards, and while that does leave plenty of other potential sources of news, they all seem to be keeping quiet so far this week.

With that in mind, I share a few reflections on what I liked at BWD, and spend rather more time talking about the one thing that I really saw as a missed opportunity. As I say on the tape, the event was very good, but could have had a truly special headline act.

Elsewhere, it is a tale of two idiosyncratic Japanese watches: the well-intentioned convertible dive watch from Kurono Tokyo, and the fascinating Otsuka Lotec No. 8. One attempts to offer a practical solution to fans unable or unwilling to choose between a retro daily wearer and a conventional dive watch, and the other is deliberately esoteric to the point of hipsterism. No prizes for guessing which I think is actually the better resolved and more appealing.

Back next week for more, when I truly hope there will in fact be more to talk about. Enjoy!

Links discussed in today’s episode:

* Vertex M36 “Desert Edition”

* Anoma

* Schofield Skeptiko

* Pinion Pure Origins

* Vulcain Skin Diver

* Junghans Aquaris

* Kurono Tokyo Diver’s Watch

* Otsuka Lotec No. 8

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you back here next week for more.

Chris

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. A lovely mixed bag this week with news from the business desk, the breaking news team and the department of opinion and analysis. Remarkably, they all sound like the same guy.

Anyway, yes: I could not allow the moment to pass without having my two cents on Morgan Stanley vs Swatch Group, the most corporate of beefs we’re likely to see in 2026. I also report on the watch world’s arrival on the prediction market scene, courtesy of a partnership between pre-owned marketplace and analytics platform Bezel and specialists Kalshi.

Prediction markets interest me for how closely they are skirting the definition of gambling - in the USA they are regulated like financial instruments, by the CFTC, but in the UK the Gambling Commission has said that although it is not for them to comment on the legality in other jurisdictions, “if a prediction market operator was to launch in Great Britain we do not believe they would be able to classify themselves as non-gambling products.” Diplomatically put. But I bet you’ve all been eagerly awaiting the chance to spice up the pre-Watches & Wonders Rolex speculation with a little flutter - you can now gamble on whether we’ll get a new GMT, or if the Pepsi will be discontinued. Interesting times.

The lead news is a new chronograph from Ming, a non-limited leftie monopusher with a muted palette and that lovely Polymesh bracelet. I also run the rule over three very different new watches: IWC’s blacked-out Portugieser Chronograph, Norqain’s Adventure and the Raymond Weil Millesime Tuxedo.

This week also brings an ignominious end to my unbroken run of ‘new indie watch brand launches’, as I couldn’t find news of a new indie that had launched in the last seven days. Ignominious because I also have to admit last week’s was a bogus entry - Annalise Dunselman launched her brand last year and I totally missed it. We regret the error, as the newspapers say. I’m sure I’ll be able to make up for it in the next few weeks.

Links discussed in today’s episode:

* Kalshi x Bezel: Watch Prediction Markets

* Swatch Group’s Open Letter to Morgan Stanley/LuxeConsult

* Ming’s 57.04 Phoenix

* IWC Portugieser Chronograph

* Norqain Adventure

* Raymond Weil Millesime Tuxedo

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you back here next week for more.

Chris

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. I’m back from illness and raring to go - except I’m horrendously behind, which is why this is going out about twelve hours late. Let’s call it an experiment in hitting the all-important commute home window for all my North American listeners…

This week I pick over news that Breitling’s private equity owners had to downgrade the value of their investment, and what that might mean for the company - including a speculative thought or two about their eventual exit - and reflect on how this news arrives hot on the back of two corporate reports hailing the general ill-health of Breitling’s core market segment.

I persist in describing watches in a purely audio medium with my summary of Habring2’s Chrono-Felix ‘Medicus’, a limited edition collaboration with SJX and a watch I approve of very much. Ditto Citizen’s already-sold-out collab with Seconde/Seconde/; not so much Mido’s boring copy-paste of a Girard-Perregaux.

I recommend, as a ‘one you might have missed’, SJX’s insanely complicated piece on the science of resonance, by David Ichim. It’s mostly beyond me, and I’m ok admitting that, but I still think it should be as widely read as possible.

Lastly, in the Indie Brand Launch Of The Week slot I take a look at the Black Tulip, which sounds like a great title for a novel or an arthouse movie but is in fact the debut watch from Dutch watchmaker Annalise Dunselman. We may not need any more three-hand, manually-wound indie watches for nearly fifty grand, but too bad, we’ve got ‘em: at least it looks great.

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you back here next week for more.

Chris

Hello everyone. Something a bit different for you today…

I have unfortunately been laid low with a chest infection, and being in no fit state to record a round-up of the week’s news (or spend hours at my desk writing one), I am instead bringing you the latest episode of The Watch Enquiry, the podcast I co-host with Tim Barber. So at least you have something to listen to!

The Watch Enquiry is on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, but I’ve included it here too - partly as a bit of an experiment. Episode 7 is titled “What Would We Do If We Were CEO For A Day?” and sees us take the hypothetical reins at four beloved brands.

This was a bit of an unusual episode. We almost didn’t release it at all - as some of you may know, we record TWE when it suits us and aim to tell stories that don’t go out of date. This episode was recorded in the summer of 2025, and due to some unforeseen delays to our production schedule (read: life getting in the way, as it does), we left it on the shelf a bit too long. Then the world shifted, and our conversation suddenly became relevant again.

You see, the point of this episode was to put some weight behind the common retort of ‘do you think you could do any better?’. As journalists we love to criticise, so this was our attempt at considering life from the other side of the desk. Although I will say, our thoughts are entirely speculative, knowingly ignorant of practicalities and pragmatic considerations and in at least some cases, totally far-fetched.

Or at least, so we thought. We live in interesting times, and although it hasn’t been confirmed - and maybe won’t be - the reported story that Richemont is even considering allowing Jaeger-LeCoultre to exit via a management buyout was too remarkable to ignore.

That’s one brand we took it upon ourselves to run - for a day, anyway - so how about the others? Grand Seiko, Blancpain and Montblanc. Three companies with big reputations but that aren’t necessarily making the most of everything they have at their disposal. Like I said, we recorded this before Blancpain released the Grande Double Sonnerie; that watch would definitely have changed our impressions, but perhaps not as much as its coverage elsewhere would imply. Phenomenal creation: now we need to see interesting ideas further down the range.

But I’ve said too much - and my eyes are giving up - so without further ado, enjoy the episode. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal next week.

Thanks,

Chris

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. This week’s podcast is a day late: my apologies. I’d like to say I was holding it back to break a sensational story, but no… this bulletin is brought to you from the little-discussed media playbook of “having an injured toddler at home and working all night to keep every plate spinning.”

Thankfully it was a slightly quieter news week. The biggest story isn’t a confirmed news item at all but a tantalisingly exciting prospect: as reported by Miss Tweed, the idea that talks are ongoing that could see Jaeger-LeCoultre exit Richemont as part of a management buyout. That would be huge. When I spoke to CEO Jerome Lambert last year he spoke eloquently about his desire to recapture the dynamism that the brand showed under his first leadership stint (2002-2013). Maybe this is how he gets that done. But maybe not! As yet there is no comment from Richemont and no corroboration from other outlets either.

Breitling’s partnership with Aston Martin is newsworthy yet fundamentally very simple: however, it has helped crystallise a thought that has been forming over the last couple of years, and I’ll be devoting Friday’s newsletter to some analysis of what exactly the pilot’s watch is for in today’s world.

Meanwhile, a few words on Studio Underd0g’s takeover of its former assembly partner Horologium - now rebranded, of course, as The D0ghouse.

Naturally there were plenty of new launches, but the two I think are worthy of your time and attention are both space-themed bracelet watches from indie brands, Ming and Sarpaneva. And finally, our independent brand launch of the week is Niton, which has landed right in the centre of the bullseye in terms of hitting the jump-hour trend - with a watch that’s more than it first appears.

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you back here next week for more.

Chris

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. Can I just say that whoever cut the brake cables on 2026, you have unleashed quite the juggernaut. Less ‘constant force’, more ‘constant drama’. As KingFlum wrote, with a phrase that I think will be lodged in my brain for the rest of the year, we are “drowning in what we wanted”. Every trend is a torrent, no watchmaker willing to risk being outflanked.

This week saw Audemars Piguet launch what would a decade ago have counted as an impressive selection of references for an entire year, including an entirely new Art Deco style jumping-hour dress watch and a super pocket watch that comes with a petite jab at Vacheron Constantin. It will doubtless only be the opening salvo of launches. There are so many top tier launches that I lacked the time to talk about new releases from Moser, Angelus, Hermes or Studio Underd0g, to name just a few.

Instead I did my best to cling onto the rollercoaster of intrigue, with boardroom drama at Greubel Forsey. I’ve spoken to CEO Michel Nydegger and ousted co-founder Stephen Forsey (who, lest I raise your expectations in too much of a clickbait fashion, is not commenting at this time. Sorry.)

Elsewhere in this episode, I give a few thoughts on the oddity of Patek Philippe’s decision to lower prices in the USA, the continued chaos that is the gold market, and I speculate wildly about whether Tudor’s new-found love of motorsport will eventually deliver unto us the Big Block revival that is so patiently awaited.

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you back here next week for more.

Chris

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. This week I pick out my personal favourites from the list of limited edition launches coming up at British Watchmakers’ Day - these were announced just today and there are some crackers, notably from Pinion, Schofield, Farer and Christopher Ward - but the other news is that for the time being there are no limited editions from Studio Underd0g, Anoma, Bremont or any other name liable to cause round-the-block queues.

Elsewhere in this episode, I see what we can learn from WoS UK’s latest set of accounts, explain how I think the Toledano & Chan relates to the Omega Seamaster 300M, and muse on Baume & Mercier’s future. Our Independent Brand Launch of the Week is Mermont, a single-handed platinum-cased dress watch on a textile strap. It confused me.

Let me know what you think - particular about Baume & Mercier. I want to hear different opinions to my own! Can it thrive under Damiani in a way that it wasn’t able to at Richemont?

Thanks for listening. I’ll see you back here next week for more.

Chris

Hello and welcome to the Fourth Wheel’s weekly news bulletin. Week two and I’ve broken my self-imposed 20-minute limit (albeit only by about 50 seconds), but I blame LVMH for launching so many noteworthy watches. In years gone by - and this varies significantly brand-to-brand I must add - LVMH Watch Week has occasionally carried the clear sense that the best releases are being held back. I don’t doubt that this year the biggest launches will still come at Watches & Wonders, but my point is that this is a pretty credible swathe of new models in its own right. Among other things, we have:

* A new mainstream(ish) watch from Tiffany

* Louis Vuitton’s updated worldtimer

* A skeletonised Daniel Roth

* TAG Heuer’s first split-seconds Carrera

The headline news for today, however, is a new version of MB&F’s LM Sequential Evo, now with flyback functionality. I make no apologies for my fondness for this movement in all its forms. It’s a belter.

Elsewhere we have a little look at Richemont’s latest financial report and what it means for the watchmaking division, profile new launches from Oris - the Big Crown Pointer Date Bullseye - and VPC, whose new dive watch claims to be the thinnest to ever achieve a 200m water resistance rating. That provides a neat link to last week’s Fourth Wheel review of the Nomos Club Sport neomatik Worldtimer.

I wrap up with my independent brand launch of the week, the intriguing Independent Atelier, whose debut creation is an homage to the work of the late Chinese master Kiu Tai Yu. This is a fascinating story in its own right. Enjoy listening!

Hello and welcome to The Fourth Wheel’s first in-house podcast!

I’m trying new things this year, and this is first. A weekly news bulletin - audio only for now - every Tuesday.

I have wanted to add something to the TFW platform for a long time; not just for the sake of it, but because I have been looking for a way to ‘do news’ without exhausting myself or duplicating what you can find elsewhere.

This is my answer: a short-form podcast that summarises the big stories of the week and hopefully provides you with a neat, quick way to be up to speed with what’s going on in the watch world. I’ve gone ahead with a really rough version: if you like it, I’ll do more.

Similarly, it’s free for now, but if it lasts I’m afraid that won’t be the case for long. The newsletter will remain unchanged, providing in-depth insight and analysis every Friday, with the first issue of every month free to all.

In this week’s episode:

New Speedmasters from Omega

Vacheron Constantin’s Concours d’Elegance for watches

Data on Rolex CPO

Teasing the new Toledano & Chan

A new watch brand from the Netherlands

Last but not least, a story you might have missed from the Christmas period: Revolution’s latest limited edition, a collaboration with Bernard Lederer.

Please let me know what you think - good or bad! I know it can be a LOT better - there will be music, for starters - expect a more polished version next week.

Thanks,

Chris