Tim Mosso kicks off Watches & Wonders 2026 with Ulysse Nardin's Matthew Haverland for an in-depth look at the watch that may be the most mechanically ambitious time-only piece ever made.

The Super Freak is the culmination of 180 years of Ulysse Nardin and 25 years of the Freak — 511 components, a fully new in-house caliber, a new case, and even a new watch box. It is the world's first automatic double tourbillon, the first Freak to display seconds, and houses the smallest mechanical differential and gimbal ever created — not just in a watch, but in any device.

The two flying tourbillons are each inclined at exactly 10 degrees — a deliberate aesthetic choice. Less would look too flat; more would look like a spaceship. Each tourbillon has its own silicon balance wheel with gold masses, and its own DIAMonSIL escapement running unlubricated thanks to a synthetic diamond coating on the silicon components. The differential averages the output of both regulators. A patented gimbal system — required just to drive the seconds display — transmits force at 90-degree angles via miniature bevel gears. The seconds indicator itself, a first for any Freak, is a rotating vertical cylinder on the minute hand.

At 44mm in white gold, it's actually one millimeter smaller than the Freak S, with a non-integrated strap that sits better on the wrist than its predecessors. The blue Nanosital hour disc — transparent, backlit in blue — is the visual centerpiece. 30 meters of water resistance, luminescence on the hour markers. Timing tolerance: minus two, plus four seconds per day, verified over two years of testing.

Only five of Ulysse Nardin's 14 grand complication watchmakers are trained to assemble it. Each movement is assembled twice — once to verify, then disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled. Over 70% of components are hand-finished. 50 pieces total, produced over 18 months. The first five or six are already allocated. Three-day power reserve in spite of the carousel and the double tourbillon — proof, as Matthew puts it, that the Grinder remains the most effective automatic winding mechanism in the industry.