A Guided Tour Of IWC's SIHH 2013 Booth From The Man Who Designed It

January 31, 2013

IWC takes its Engineered for Men motto seriously and that extends beyond its watches. Every year at SIHH, the brand pulls out all the stops with its booth.?Last year it was a life-size recreation of anaircraft carrier flight deck, complete with conning tower and flight simulator to celebrate the Pilot family.?This year the theme for its Ingenieur refresh was motorsports, and for the occasion IWC built a Formula 1 technical lab, complete with faux wind tunnel turbines, stacks of tires, disembodied engines, and, of course, cars.? We were lucky enough to get a guided tour of the booth by none other than the man who designed it, Chris Grainger.Of course, the point of this was to tie the new Ingenieurline of watches with IWCs partnership with Mercedes AMG Petronas and drawsimilarities between high tech racing and the building of precision sports watches.The new Ingenieurs were displayed in cases on moving pistons while otherdisplay cases showed the different stages of watch case development and thevarious materials IWC usescarbon fiber, ceramic, titanium and steel. Beyond all this technology and machinery, there was room torelax too. A VP seating area featured perforated leather seating with Mercedeshead rests. There was a well-stocked bar thinly disguised as a technical centerand a Selectrix electric slot car track. Three Mercedes, a Formula 1 Mercedes AMG Petronas car, an AMG SLS track safety car and, our favorite, the actual SLR Mercedes driven by Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1955 Mille Miglia race, topped things off.?In short, this was like most guys dreamgarage and we visited every chance we got.During one visit to the booth, we were lucky enough to get aguided tour by none other than the man who designed it, Chris Grainger. By this time hes already startedplanning next years IWC booth (and he designed last year's as well). Checkout the booth photos and listen to Chris explain the inspiration and detailsbehind this years booth.