The Chopard L.U.C Grand Strike hits the right note

The Chopard L.U.C Grand Strike chiming watch

(Image credit: Chopard)

At Chopard, 2026 marks 30 years since the founding of its in-house movement workshops in Fleurier, Switzerland. Representing the haute horlogerie division within the company, the unveiling of the L.U.C collection the following year was a major milestone in the history of a business founded in 1860 by Louis-Ulysse Chopard, and owned since 1963 by the Scheufele family.

To mark its 30th anniversary, in November Chopard’s co-president, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, unveiled its most complex wristwatch yet. The 686-component L.U.C Grand Strike features grand and petite sonnerie settings and a minute-repeater function regulated by a 60-second tourbillon, all housed in an ethical white gold case measuring 43mm in diameter.

Building on the collection’s particular affinity with chiming watches - in particular the award-winning Full Strike, which one the highest honour at the 2016 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie Geneve – the Grand Strike is the culmination of ten years of research in materials, acoustics and micro-mechanical engineering, beginning with the innovative use of sapphire gongs against which tiny steel hammers strike the hours, quarters and minutes.

Since the introduction of synthetic sapphire crystal - technically referred to as monocrystalline aluminium oxide - in watchmaking, its role has grown, from serving as the ‘glass’ protecting the dial (and often the porthole through which you can view the marvel of a movement through the rear caseback) to forming the case and bracelet itself: no mean feat with a material recognised for it relative fragility. At Chopard, however, since 2016 sapphire crystal has been deployed in an entirely new arena: serving as the gongs by which a chiming watch creates its tell-tale acoustic record of the passing time.

Chiming watches usually deploy hardened steel in the fabrication of gongs, further amplified by the choice of case material (judgements vary on which produces the best sound, with rose gold often winning out for the softness of its tone) to which they are attached. At Chopard, however, further innovation has produced a chiming watch that requires no further transmission as its gongs form a ‘monobloc’ with the dial crystal itself.

To create a chime both attractive and, as Mr Scheufele demonstrated at the launch in central Geneva, crystal clear even above the hum of passing traffic, the atelier in Fleurier worked with Romain Boulandet, an acoustic engineer at the Haute Ecole du Paysage, d'Ingénierie et d'Architecture (HEPIA) in Geneva - to study the psycho-acoustic properties of its chiming mechanism. Accordingly, the notes played by the L.U.C Grand Strike are tuned to produce a C# – F♮ chord, a musical interval which, it is said conveys stability and unity. Other epithets used to describe the resulting tonality were ‘Ethereal’, ‘powerful’, ‘brilliant’ and ‘resonant’.

As befits its most complex timepiece Chopard has yet created, the L.U.C Grand Strike unites two sonnerie (ie automatic) functions: grand - which sounds the hours and quarters; petite which marks only quarters; together with a minute repeater function that offers all three measures on demand. Toggling between all three requires a great deal of power - furnished in the Grand Strike by the use of two barrels, one for timekeeping, and the other for its chiming mechanisms. Several of the ten patents granted or pending deal with improvements around the activation and protection of the movement, and include the evening out of the gaps that can occur between the striking hours, quarters and minutes, and the means by which these can be silenced, achieved by the deployment of a sliding mode selector switch.

As the pinnacle of watchmaking at Chopard, it’s no surprise to find that the L.U.C Grand Strike is both COSC certified and the recipient of the Poincon de Geneve (or Geneva Seal’) and the Qualite Fleurier, hallmarks of its superior assembly and finishing as well as its precision and reliability.

Given it takes a watchmaker an average of two months to assemble a Grand Strike, Mr Scheufele predicts production is currently limited to between two and three watches a year. Price on application.

chopard.com

Bill Prince is a journalist, author, and editor-in-chief of Wallpaper* and The Blend. Prior to taking up these roles, he served for 23 years as the deputy editor of British GQ. In addition to editing, writing and brand curation, Bill is an acknowledged authority on travel, hospitality and men's style. He is the author of two books, Royal Oak: From Iconoclast To Icon – a tribute to the Audemars Piguet watch at 50 – and The Connaught, a history of the legendary Mayfair hotel, both published by Assouline