Several years ago, Panerai published Luminor Submersible 1950 PAM 382, which raised a bronze storm in watch industry. The story between XF and bronze started from Panerai’s PAM 382. Afterwards, XF unveiled PAM 507, PAM 671, Zenith Type 20 Pilot Extra Special, Tudor Black Bay Bronzo, these are all art work of XF that are made of bronze material. So, we can see that XF factory continuously researched bronze and applied this material in their watch-making process, today, they released this IWC Pilot Spitfire bronze watch, it is the first IWC watch that is made of bronze.Actually, it is not hard to make a bronze case, but the difficulty is that bronze case should be oxidized to our expected result at the speed we want, XF has always been researching this, now the oxidized result on this IWC Pilot Spitfire has achieved a perfect condition, which is closest to genuine, compared with the bronze case from small factories, you will find that their oxidized color is uneven and there is even rusty spot.
The IWC Portuguese Annual Calendar replica is equipped with an Asia IWC 52850 automatic movement, ZF disassembled all 326 components of original movement, after lots of trials of data analysis, the clone movement looks 90% the same as original 52850, besides, its adjusting method and winding feel are 100% the same as original. Because this IWC Portuguese watch has a see-through case back, so on the replica movement, ZF factory needs to work hard on the movement decoration. The following are photos of four Portuguese Annual Calendar watches.
