Our first Urwerk Review! The UR-150 Dark Scorpion
Urwerk UR-150 Scorpion
“The duration of an hour should be a period of play. It should be a celebration for that one specific hour in life and so you have something on your watch, something exciting, thrilling and engaging to represent it.”
- URWERK
To my mind, Urwerk have always been sitting at the peak of avant garde slash bonkers watchmaking along with MB&F.
They are anything but conventional, and about as refreshing as an ice cold coke on a hot day.
Founded by Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei who met through “partying” in Lucerne, Urwerk have been making or should I say “creating” watches since 1997.
The brand is independent and fiercely unique, producing fascinating three dimensional machines that can admittedly sometimes take a few beats to read instantly, but once you get the hang of them, immense wrist joy.
They aren’t just masters of aesthetics though, these watches pack some serious watchmaking prowess to boot.
This particular model is the UR-150 Scorpion, so named because the retrograde minute hand snaps back to zero with a speed comparable to a scorpions stinger.
1/100th of a second, to be exact, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The watch uses a sattelite display mechanism which consists of an outer minute track around the dial in an arc of 240 degrees. The inner part of the dial contains 3 disks, each printed with 4 numbers, you would think that these revolve at leisure, but they do not.
The hour sits within the red frame of a large pointer which indicates the current minutes, and when the hour changes, both the hour disks and the retrograde minute hand change position in a literal split second as the minutes reset to zero and the correct hour disk spins into position.
if you’re quick enough to catch it, this snap and re-alignment is a real treat and feat of Urwerks skill in this department. Very cool indeed.
To condense a hugely complex mechanism - look at that pointer to read both the hour inside it and the minute that it’s pointing to.
Bosh done on the time telling front, even in low light as everything is lumed to the hilt.
The movement is automatic, and uses a double set of turbines at the rear which take care of both the winding of the movement, and providing some shock absorbtion for the force of the retrograde swing-back. Really nifty and visually appealing as the view from the caseback is completely different to what you’d usually see on a “normal” wristwatch.
These ingenious mechanics are packed into a organically shaped tonneau style case which at 42.5mm wide and 14.8mm is large, but the stats on paper are deceptive because the sapphire dome accounts for some of the height, and the rear is curved to hug the wrist.
The Scorpion doesnt wear as large as you’d think, partly due to the ergonomics, and partly because rather than being set to the side, the crown sits up the top at 12 which makes the case sides sleek and the watch appear slimmer.
It’s also lightweight as it’s made from titanium with a DLC anthracite coating to give it a dark theme which makes the dial stand out as the centre of attention, as it should be.
The strap is a comfortable rubber wrist-hugger as the case features a lugless design so it flows around the wrist and ends in a twin trigger deployant clasp, and as a whole, the Dark Scorpion is a supremely comfortable watch to wear, and absolutely fascinating to observe in action.
I really rate it, and in all honesty, would probably pick it above and beyond any comparable offerings in its price range as it’s different enough to hold my interest with its retrograde party trick, and the fit and finish are top notch to boot.
If Urwerk aren’t on your radar yet, check them out, and if the Dark Scorpion has piqued your interest in the brand, get in touch!