IWC Schaffhausen’s enduring partnership with Mercedes-Benz and the German marque’s Formula 1 team is the gift that keeps on giving, trading favours for more than two decades since the watchmaker signed on with Mercedes-AMG back in 2004.
In recent years, we’ve been treated to George Russell’s first-ever reference, taking over the top seat at the F1 team following Lewis Hamilton’s Italian departure; there’s even been one for the Team Principal, with IWC launching the Big Pilot Shock Absorber XPL for Toto Wolff last year.
And now, in 2026, an anniversary to celebrate: 140 years of Mercedes-Benz, and the partnership has just welcomed its biggest watch yet.
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Under the banner "140 Years of Innovation," and celebrated with three S-Class saloons currently being driven to 140 locations across six continents, IWC is releasing a 140-piece Big Pilot's Watch Perpetual Calendar – one for every year since Carl Benz filed his patent for the first automobile in 1886.
This limited edition reference addresses one of the perpetual calendar’s trickiest quirks – they’re generally a pain to set correctly, requiring recessed pushers, precise crown positions, and a fair bit of patience if you get the sequence wrong.
So IWC built something genuinely groundbreaking – what it’s calling a ProSet module, the first perpetual calendar with a moon phase that can be brought forward or set back with a single crown position. Once set, IWC says it will deviate by just one day after 1040 years.
Set within a 42mm stainless steel case, the IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet 140 Years Mercedes-Benz (Ref. IW329603) is accentuated with Mercedes iconography throughout, with a minute track chasing the outside of the piece and a commemorative logo – the first for Mercedes-Benz following the 1926 merger of Daimler Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) with Benz & Cie. – on the sapphire caseback.
Across the black dial, solid gold appliqués and gold-plated hands are set above the piece’s four subdials – a date at 3, the month at 6, the day at 9, and the moon phase found at 12 o’clock.
Though in true IWC style, this Big Pilot never seems cluttered, promising heaps of useful information within an easy-to-read frame. Yours for $60,300; an easy pick for the latest Watch of the Week.