Weird Watches

Since the world went into financial meltdown at the end of the 2000s, the watch industry appears convinced its customers only want round-cased, conservatively styled watches, perhaps with a vintage twist. Fortunately, not everyone got the memo...

Omega Speedmaster Skywalker X-33

Man may not be landing on the moon wearing Omega Speedmasters any more, but the Swiss brand's ambition to cross frontiers remains undiminished. It's currently working with Solar Impulse, the mission that should result in the first round-the-world flight by a solar-powered plane next spring. The 21st-century watch worn by Solar Impulse pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg is this grade 2 titanium quartz gizmo, which has been tested and certified by the European Space Agency and comes with two space-ready functions: mission elapsed time and phase elapsed time.

£3,720; omegawatches.com

Before quartz emerged as the dominant mass-movement solution in the Seventies, watch brands went through a period of experimentation, often with memorably odd results. One such brand was Bulova, whose Sixties Alpha watches were powered by electronic movements based on the vibrations of a tuning fork. This new piece shares the same spirit, although the tuning fork has been replaced with a quartz torsional resonator movement Bulova claims is six times more accurate than standard quartz movements.

£399; bulova.com

Urwerk's esoteric collection has been joined this year by the UR-105M, a timekeeper inspired by medieval knights (why not?). It has four rotating satellites instead of hands, each of which has three hour indicators that appear as the satellites rotate on their own axes. These pass by a minute's scale once every four hours, making a system that's both ingenious and also surprisingly easy to read. The watch has a titanium case and an AlTiN-treated steel bezel, and an ‘oil change' indicator to tell you when it's due for a service.

63,000 CHF (£41,464); urwerk.com

As well as having one of the longest names in watchmaking, this timepiece is also one of the most technically advanced. Its case is moulded in carbon NTPT, a material made by heating and compressing 600 layers of woven carbon filaments, each of which is just 30 microns thick. Inside that is a hand-wound tourbillon chronograph calibre with a mechanical g-force sensor and a function indicator. Only 30 will be made, and each comes with a 1/5th scale model of a Lotus F1 car.

£697,000; richardmille.com