The manufacturer celebrates 140 years since Mercedes-Benz’s invention of the automobile with a 140-piece Big Pilot’s Watch featuring the new Perpetual Calendar ProSet, which adjusts both forward and backward.

In 1886, Carl Benz filed a patent for the first automobile, and shortly afterward Gottlieb Daimler built a motorized carriage. In the 140 years since, Mercedes-Benz has continued to pioneer the history of the automobile while constantly advancing technology, safety, comfort, and design.
To commemorate this milestone, IWC Schaffhausen has unveiled the Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet “140 Years Mercedes-Benz.”
The relationship between the two brands began in 2004, when IWC became a partner of Mercedes-AMG. Since 2013, it has served as the Official Engineering Partner of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One™ Team, developing projects that span engineering and design, including team watches and special models inspired by the G-Class.
Speaking about the 22-year relationship, IWC Schaffhausen CEO Christoph Grainger-Herr says it began as a business partnership and developed into a friendship based on mutual respect for and trust in each other’s creations. Precision engineering, uncompromising performance, and forward-looking design—the values the two brands have shared—also run through this limited-edition model.
Mercedes-Benz is currently running a campaign titled “140 YEARS. 140 PLACES.” Three new S-Class sedans are traveling to 140 locations across six continents and covering more than 50,000 kilometers, conveying the brand’s technology, tradition, and pioneering spirit through the journey. Echoing this story of movement, the new watch inscribes 140 years of innovation into a different realm: time.

Courtesy of IWC.

The Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar ProSet “140 Years Mercedes-Benz” will be produced in a worldwide limited edition of 140 pieces, in reference to the history of Mercedes-Benz.
Its 42 mm stainless steel case is paired with a black dial. Applied indices in gold and gold-plated hands create a warm contrast, while a white minute track enhances legibility. Despite its complex calendar displays, the restrained color palette preserves the clarity characteristic of the Big Pilot’s Watch.
The sapphire crystal caseback features the historic logo representing the merger of Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft and Benz &amp; Cie. It was the first logo used when Mercedes-Benz was born through the merger of the two companies in 1926, combining the laurel wreath derived from the Benz emblem with Daimler’s three-pointed star.
The design looks not only to the invention of the automobile 140 years ago, but also to the event 100 years ago that laid the foundations of the brand that continues to the present day. The movement visible through the caseback overlaps with the historic logo, creating an image as though an innovation from the past were driving the mechanism of the present.

At the heart of the new watch is the Perpetual Calendar ProSet, a newly developed mechanism covered by four patents that IWC introduced at Watches and Wonders 2026.
IWC’s history of mechanical calendars dates back to 1985, when it introduced the perpetual calendar developed by watchmaker Kurt Klaus. While carrying on that tradition, the new ProSet reconstructs the way the perpetual calendar itself is adjusted.
Its most distinctive feature is that the calendar can be moved not only forward but also backward from a single crown position. There is no need for the case-side pushers or complicated setting procedures found on conventional perpetual calendars; all displays can be adjusted intuitively, with a feeling similar to setting the time.
The operation is simple, but inside, precision components with complex shapes work together. The module is made entirely of gears and is manufactured using the LIGA process, a microfabrication technique applying lithography and electroforming technology.

On the dial, the date is positioned at 3 o’clock, the month at 6 o’clock, the day of the week at 9 o’clock, and the moon phase at 12 o’clock. Between 7 and 8 o’clock is the four-digit year display that characterizes IWC’s perpetual calendars.
The double moon phase, which displays the phases of the moon as seen from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, achieves a theoretical accuracy of just one day of deviation in 1,040 years through a newly designed reduction gear train. The watch is powered by the IWC-manufactured calibre 82665, which offers approximately 60 hours of power reserve.
To celebrate 140 years of pioneering the future of the automobile through an innovation that makes an existing mechanism more intuitive to operate: this is not simply about commemorating the past. It contains complexity within while giving the wearer a clear and straightforward experience. That philosophy speaks to the engineering aesthetic shared by IWC and Mercedes-Benz.

IWC Marks 140 Years of Mercedes-Benz With a Watch That Moves Time Both Ways

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