Chopard Drops A New Chiming Watch - The L.U.C Grand Strike

Every year, a few watch brands try to end the season with something bolder. This time, Chopard showed up swinging. The new L.U.C Grand Strike is easily one of the wildest chiming pieces they’ve ever put out - and considering their track record with the Full Strike line, that’s saying something. This time, expect grande sonnerie, petite sonnerie, a minute repeater, a tourbillon, and a movement that looks out of this world.

Let’s break it down, because there’s a lot going on here.

 

Source: Hypebeast

A Case Inspired by Familiar Lines, But With New Tricks

The case might ring a bell for anyone who followed the earlier Full Strike models. This time it comes in 18k ethical white gold, sized at 43mm across and just over 14mm thick. Not a small watch, and honestly, would you even want something like this to hide on the wrist? Part of the appeal is that slightly overbuilt presence.

Where Chopard usually sticks to the crown-integrated pusher for the repeater, the Grand Strike adds an extra sliding switch positioned just above it. That little slider lets you pick between three modes:

• Grande sonnerie - chimes on the hours and quarters
  
  

• Petite sonnerie - hours only
  
  

• Silent - nothing happens unless you manually hit the repeater
  
  

No matter which mode you’re in, you can still fire up the minute repeater with the crown pusher. It’s classic L.U.C engineering: stacked features, but still reasonably intuitive.

Source: Hypebeast

A Front-Facing Movement That Looks… Well, interesting

Chopard basically said “forget the dial.” Instead, you’re looking straight into the mechanical depths of the new L.U.C 08.03-L calibre, made up of a headache-inducing 686 components. The bridges and plates in warm German silver give the whole front side an industrial-but-polished vibe.

And despite the complexity, everything you need is still readable:

• Right under 12, there’s a small rotating disc that tells you if the watch is in grande, petite, or silent mode.
  
  

• To the right of that, you’ll see a pair of power reserve indicators - one for the timekeeping barrel, one for the chiming barrel.
  
  

• At 6 o’clock, there’s a small seconds running off the 60-second tourbillon, which, fun fact, actually hacks. That means the entire tourbillon cage stops when you pull the crown. Very few tourbillons do that, and it’s one of those “tiny” details that collectors love even if they’ll never truly need it.
  
  

The movement runs for around 70 hours, and the grande sonnerie mode has a guaranteed minimum of 12 hours of chiming, which is kind of wild when you think about how much energy that complication consumes.

Source: Hypebeast

The Sound Engine - Sapphire Gongs Doing Their Thing

The real star here is the chiming system. Chopard has leaned heavily into sapphire gongs over the years, and they’re using them again - for good reason. They’re louder, brighter, and have this crystalline strike that stands out from the warmth of traditional steel gongs.

The gongs are actually fused into the front crystal, forming a single piece. That means when the hammers hit, the sound radiates straight out through the sapphire without losing energy through the case. It’s a clever design that Chopard has practically made their signature.

The hammers sit around the 10 o’clock area and are impossible to miss. Watching them in action is half the point of a watch like this.

Chopard also baked in a bunch of safety systems: preventing misfires, stopping you from triggering something that could damage the movement, and making sure the chimes finish properly even if you do something clumsy. Plenty of brands add chiming complications, but few spend this much time on user-proofing them.

Source: Hypebeast

Patents, Certifications, and the Usual Chopard Overkill

Chopard is not holding back here:

• Five new patents in this watch
  
  

• Five existing patents carried over from earlier projects
  
  

• COSC certification (done in petite sonnerie mode, interestingly)
  
  

• And of course, the Poinçon de Genève stamp on top
  
  

It’s very “look what we can do,” but in a way that still feels like classic L.U.C - focused on craft, not just complexity for complexity’s sake.

The fact that it’s COSC-certified in petite sonnerie mode also says something. Petite sonnerie actually consumes more energy than grande (because you’re suppressing the quarter chimes), which means Chopard wanted accuracy to be measured in the tougher configuration. It’s a small but cool detail.

Source: Hypebeast

My Take - What A Watch

There are already grande sonnerie tourbillon watches on the market, so this isn’t a “never been done before” thing. But Chopard’s execution feels very them - loud in sound, but not in personality. The sapphire gong idea is still one of the most innovative approaches to chiming in modern watchmaking, and the way they integrate the mechanism visually makes this piece feel truly unique.

I also love that the dial is gone. Most brands shy away from exposing this much, but for a watch that lives and dies by its mechanics, there’s no better choice. Everything from the hammers to the tourbillon to the mode indicator is what makes this watch so interesting.

Will this watch be for everyone? Of course not. But if you’re at the level where you’re comparing grande sonnerie pieces - first of all, congrats on life - this one should absolutely be in the conversation.

Pricing and Availability

The Chopard L.U.C Grand Strike is priced at around €810,000. It’s not limited, but realistically, production numbers won’t be high.