LAUNCH control set, throttle down, dump the brake and all 631 horses in the Lamborghini Huracan Performante’s V10 will hurl this hypercar from rest to 100kph in less than three seconds — or quicker than it takes to say “Lamborghini Huracan Performante.” Now, Roger Dubuis is channeling the spirit of this high-performance version of the already heady Huracan in the new Excalibur Huracan Performante timepiece, released ahead of the 2019 Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie.
Born out of Roger Dubuis’s and Lamborghini Squadra Corse’s (or race squad) high-octane tryst, the Excalibur Huracan Performante is the follow-up piece to 2017’s Excalibur Aventador S. So, like the pioneering collab job, the new watch is lavished with design codes lifted straight off the supercar world.
Evoking the aesthetics of the Huracan Performante, the Excalibur taking its name also adopts some geometric patterns, most notably the decorative piece on the openworked dial, which mimics strut bars, as well as the “air intakes,” complete with matte black “vents,” that partly cover the movement beneath. Some of the movement’s bridges also take after the look of the supercar’s structure.
Other overtly Huracan-inspired touches are a winding crown meant to look like a lug nut, a “twin-barrel energy tank,” and a full rotor designed as a scaled-down version of the car’s alloy wheels. Even the 45-millimeter titanium case is finished in a “Technical Titan Gray” color livened up in places by bright yellow accents — on the hands, second markers, crown base and bezel ring, to be specific. The date display is in yellow, too, and rendered in a snazzy font purporting to be an LCD readout.
The Excalibur Huracan Performante’s strap is just as rich in Lamborghini details. Made of Alcantara (like that lining the car’s cabin), it gets a rubber inlay marked by the tread pattern of the Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tire — the Huracan Performante’s specified footwear.
Powering the watch is a newly developed “engine” tagged the cal. RD630. Though details about it have yet to be revealed, this movement — whose nomenclature most likely references the Huracan Performante’s horsepower output — has a balance wheel inclined by 12 degrees. This recalls the setup in the Excalibur Aventador S’s calibre, although that one boasts of two balance wheels. Still, this inclined balance wheel configuration is shaping up to be a signature of Roger Dubuis’s and Lamborghini’s kinship with awesome stuff.
