De Bethune’s New Version of Iconic Titan Hawk

Photo: Esperluxe

The De Bethune Titan Hawk line’s latest addition is the DB27 Titan Hawk JPS. It continues the collection’s blend of cutting-edge technical characteristics, wearability and functionality, and simple, unique style in a watch that honors the 1970s heyday of intense motorsports.

The revolutionary DB27 Titan Hawk JPS has a crisp yet delicately elegant technical touch, thanks to the striking contrast of black and gold. This mirrors the legacy and impact of motorsports competition, along with the cutting-edge capabilities of the caliber AUTOV2.

Generally, the DB27 Titan Hawk JPS incorporates a new feel while drawing cues from the style and innovation of its forerunners. Major design features include slim contours, a black microlight dial, sandblasted titanium minute markers with hand-polished ends, a microlight casing center, coated lugs, and a colored open rear. Moreover, this watch is distinguished by its sleek appearance as well as for having a completely in-house mechanism.

A black canvas band goes with the 43-millimeter black zirconium casing, which has a microlight design in the center. Also, in contrast to conventional sports timepieces made of stainless steel, black zirconium is indeed a high-tech, extremely durable, hypoallergenic, and ultralight material with outstanding technical benefits. The distinctive De Bethune articulating floating lugs and their ogival points additionally increase the watch’s wearability. This enables the piece to fit the wearer’s wrist properly, no matter how big or small. 

Photo: Monochrome

Lastly, the casing and dial shape mirror the John Player Special Formula One livery worn by the F1 Lotus squad. It also demonstrates De Bethune’s historical devotion to technological and aesthetic competence. Remarkably, the yellow titanium highlights contrast with the black zirconium casing structure.

Movement: Caliber AUTOV2

De Bethune presented the AUTOV2, which beats at the center of the wristwatch with a contemporary twist, in March 2018. This caliber AUTOV2 is the engine that drives the DB27 Titan Hawk JPS. 

Generally, AUTOV2 has been enhanced for strength, accuracy, and effectiveness, much like the motors in the most advanced racing automobiles. It also uses the most advanced resources and techniques to produce a movement meant to be the pinnacle of performance manufacturing.

Photo: Monochrome

In addition, the caliber AUTOV2 has De Bethune’s recognizable titanium balancing featuring white gold accents and boasts a power reserve of 60 hours with one mainspring barrel. Indeed, De Bethune has studied and finalized this objective over two decades of perfecting the balance structure, the component that controls the accuracy of the whole piece. The balance must also have specific technical properties, such as optimal weight at the edge and minimum mass throughout. 

The AUTOV2 is an advanced reflection of both outstanding aesthetics and precise craftsmanship. This is all due to the unique De Bethune balancing spring as well as a balancing bridge placed at two positions on the movement panel for optimal power and stability.

De Bethune: History of the Brand

The De Bethune factories’ creative foundation is built on three guiding principles: fashion, inventiveness, and mechanical aptitude. It has only taken two watch enthusiasts ten brief years to create what history will undoubtedly see as the cornerstones of twenty-first-century horology.

Photo: Monochrome

David Zanetta, a collector with interests in art, history, and watches, took the step in 2002 to team up with Denis Flageollet, who has a family bloodline in watchmaking, to form De Bethune. They both were fully aware of their shared goal for watch designing in the future. Hence, the two combined time-tested techniques with the most recent scientific findings to improve chronometric accuracy. The search for excellence stretched the boundaries of great craftsmanship to the level where technological and aesthetic concerns met and blended.

Photo: Monochrome

De Bethune is primarily a research and innovation tool. In short, it’s a workshop where people work with cutting-edge technology like the renowned expert designers of the 18th century. Every component is developed and created individually, with special attention paid to all detail. It is also where measuring time is the only thing that matters, yet time itself is never recorded. What’s more, the Manufacture’s laboratories have a sense of adventure that is symbolic of the grand intellectual endeavors of the Age of Enlightenment.

In addition, the realm of possibilities seems almost limitless to these modern researchers. Passion serves as the guiding principle, the winning strategy, and the motive for these outstanding men’s ongoing personal dedication. Otherwise, how would one account for the 9 trademarks, 11 calibers, and 15 world-first inventions that the Manufacture has given watch enthusiasts in just its first 10 years of operation?

Photo: Ekoswatches

Every year, De Bethune provides models that capture the core of mechanical horology to a select group of privileged enthusiasts worldwide. The immense intricacy of the resources and methods used is simultaneously concealed and magnified by the collection’ simplicity of design, refinement, and elegance. The casings’ transparency and the dials’ and hands’ exceptional delicacy, which give the impression that they are floating weightlessly above the movements, attest to a blend of ultimate technical expertise and a creative mind.

Generally, the concepts governing the development of the systems include not doing more but rather doing it better, learning from the experience to continually recreate it, and building connections across many knowledge domains. De Bethune’s groundbreaking work is thus accomplished by persistently developing new routes to eliminate the two prominent adversaries of accuracy: mass and friction.

Photo: De Bethune

Lastly, with its legs strongly entrenched in history and its head steadfastly pointed facing the future, De Bethune is the creator of 21st-century timepieces and the keeper of the noble legacy. In November 2011, its competitors awarded De Bethune a significant appreciation gesture. It received the prestigious “Aiguille d’Or” or Golden Hand, the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix’s special prize, honoring its extraordinary technique at the intersections of science and the arts.

Bottom Line

De Bethune’s sports, technological, and aesthetic requirements are ultimately satisfied with the DB27 Titan Hawk JPS. This variant features the unique floating lug mechanism with its recognizable conical-shaped ends that are more noticeable than before, as well as all the design cues used by the manufacturer. It consists of refined yellow 5th-grade titanium inlays that reference the case’s edge, the crown’s twelve o’clock position, and a microlight design on the center of the casing. With the black microlight dial, a De Bethune-specific ornamentation enhances classic guilloche to create special aesthetic and optical aspects.