The Rebellion T-1000 is like a great racing animal that has spent several weeks in the caring hands of experts in watch adjustment, has been pampered by the most skilled finishers, and is now standing on the starting line ready to go.

Virile, totally wild, rebellious and elegant

The Rebellion T-1000 owes its name to the incredible power reserve of 1000 hours and to its energy, which is boosted by the tension developed from six barrel springs in two groups of three pulled by two chains made up of 182 components each. Everything about this perfectly symmetrical horological construction screams innovation and sheer volume. It is wound up not by twiddling some regular pusher, but rather by a manly arming system of considerable size, but cleverly integrated into the rear of the case, which is in titanium and titanium DLC. This design preserves the watch’s sacrosanct feeling of elegance. Time-setting couldn’t be easier thanks to a patented clutch system hitched directly to the two rollers displaying hours and minutes.

Off the beaten path, disruptive watchmaking

The Rebellion-T-1000 was designed to push the envelope right to the edge of what’s doable in watchmaking. It has managed to invent its own reality, and in so doing, it annihilated all the well-known shibboleths and raised the eyebrows of those who stand guard over consensual knowledge. To get to that point required a team of wild guys, dyed-in-the-wool stunt men, all wired by the sustained tension of a famous endurance race, but intoxicated by the scent of victory. They then went for a spin in the world of ideas generated by a major challenge. The backdrop to all of this was the idea of finding new solutions and concepts for two compatible passions, the car and the watch. It probably went like this: “Here is an idea: What about taking an ordinary car and souping it up to the point where it can endure the extreme stress of one of the world's most demanding races for a full 24 hours, and then applying that concept to mechanical watchmaking and chronometric science?”

This was the birth of the Rebellion T-1000, and that is how it landed on the workbenches and CAD screens of a team of mad watchmakers led by David Candaux. In 2016, this racing beast is once again showing up in global news. Between the first launch of this outstanding watch and the year 2016, Rebellion Racing, the only race car stable owned by a watch brand, has had its fair share of successes, victories, high-power performances, and presence on a victory podium. And the finale of the 24 Heures du Mans creates the right backdrop of overheated engines, with the odor of oil mixed with burnt rubber, that is, a bewitching atmosphere very propitious to some very creative escapades.

A visible showing at Baselworld 2016

The old Rebellion T-1000 experienced an in-depth scrutiny in the workshops of the original designer, David Candaux, the brilliant watchmaker working in the Vallée de Joux in Switzerland, the historic cradle of complication timepieces. It returns now to stage center more determined than ever to shake up the scene. It is more dynamic, too, tweaked by way of various adjustments inherent to a watch of ultimate complication, roaring with new power, tweaked for reliability and tested in extreme conditions.