Panerai’s new Luminor is reliable. So reliable, in fact, the watch brand says you can go 50 years without having to take it in for service, and it’s backing the claim up with a 50-year guarantee. To do this, the new (deep breath) Lab-ID Luminor 1950 Carbotech 3 Days foregoes traditional oils and lubricants on the inside of the watch in favor of internal components made out of advanced materials like tantalum-based ceramic and DLC-coated silicon, which, under the same principle as synthetic jewel bearings, have a lower coefficient of friction, thus eliminating the need for traditional lubricants that normally need to be replaced with regular servicing.
To match the high-tech guts, the exterior of the watch is appropriately sci-fi. The case is made from “Carbotech,” Panerai’s name for its carbon fiber weave, and at 49mm it’s tremendously massive. The dial itself gets a coating of carbon nanotubes, which absorbs most of the light that hits it, making the dial appear as none-more-black as possible and giving the blue-hued SuperLumiNova a sharp contrast from the rest of the watch face and an almost alien-like appearance. Of course, none of this will come cheap: The astronomical MSRP will land somewhere around $53,000.
Further Reading
Why We Love Dive Watches
The Most Complicated Panerai Ever Made
