Ulysse Nardin Freak One - 2023 GPHG WINNER

Ulysse Nardin Freak One 2405-500-2A/3A

I’ve spent the last few days desperately trying to avoid making any puns or obvious statements about this particular watch, and I have to tell you, its been difficult.

Rest assured though, I have decided not to get my freak on, freak out, or make declarations of freaking loving this thing, although I absolutely do and I thank you for allowing me to quietly get the above out of my system so I can continue with this review without going near the double entendres ever again. 

Instead I am going to ask a simple question and provide an obvious answer. 

What do you get when you cross the Millennium Falcon with a wristwatch? 

The seriously epic Ulysse Nardin Freak. 

First launched in 2001, the Freak was the result of two titans of the industry Rolf Schnyder (UN’s owner) and Dr Ludwig Oechslin, a top tier watchmaker getting their heads together to create something that was not only hyper-modern but spectacular to boot. 

I’m going to ask you to grab a coffee at this point, maybe even some toast because this is a BIG review.

Usually I like to keep things vaguely concise, but in order to really get the Freak, you’ve got to put some of pieces of the horological jigsaw puzzle together. 

In simple terms, Schnyder and Oechslin are the horological equivalent of Indiana Jones and (fittingly) Doc Brown from Back To The Future.

If you have a bit of background on these two legends, then the development of the Freak makes complete sense.

Schnyder was a traveller and an adventurer. 

His watch journey started in the advertising department of Jaeger LeCoultre in Geneva before moving briefly to London. In 1958 he moved to Thailand to work for a Swiss company and dealing with distribution throughout Asia, including that of watches. 

A decade later he launched the Cosmo component company in Thailand which watch sold parts to Switzerland before moving to Malaysia and establishing Precima, which along the same lines supplied the Swiss out of Kuala Lumpur. 

Amongst all of his watch related dealings and extensive travel, he also managed to raft down the river Kwai and visit China during the cultural revolution, images of which were published in Life magazine. 

He built his home “Precima House” in Kuala Lumpur, which he used as a base while splitting his time between Asia and Switzerland when he returned in 1983 to race skeleton bobsleds and purchase Ulysse Nardin. 

As you do. 

UN was one of many manufacturers that was brought to its knees by the quartz crisis of the 70s. Originally founded in 1864 they specialised in the production of marine chronometers and instruments. 

Scheider knew that in order to pull off a Phoenix style rise from the ashes, he had to offer something drastically unique to make the company competitive, and more to the point, viable again. 

One of his first interventions was to hire Ludwig Oechslin.

This came about after Schneider had visited the workshop of Jorg Sporing, a renowned watchmaker.
He noticed and immediately fell in love with a spectacular clock hanging from the workshop wall, it was an Astrolabe clock that could calculate the position of the stars, and it was a creation of Sporing’s apprentice, you guessed it. 

Ludwig Oechslin was an extraordinary philosopher, archeologist, philosopher and undeniably genius watchmaker who was responsible for the complete restoration of the “Farnese clock”, a hugely complex astronomical clock in the Vatican Library which had over 1000 components. 

His work with the Farnese led to the 1995 Prix Gaia award for history and research after he painstakingly studied, reassembled and reverse engineered the clock to aid future servicing as it was originally built in 1725 with zero schematics.

He also built an exact replica of the Antikythera mechanism, ancient Greek and the oldest example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and events decades into the future.
That is some seriously top level stuff. 

Huge accolades aside, I think possibly the part of Dr Oechslin’s story that resonates with me the most is a tale of him having a small centimetre square mirror pinned to a beret so that those who annoyed him in daylight were be treated to an unpleasant glare from the sun if he tilted his head at them. 

Superb. 

In later years (2001-2014) Oechslin served as Curator and Director of the Musée International d’Horlogerie and now owns Ochs and Junior.

Rolf Schnyder sadly passed away in 2011. 

Back to the 80’s, though, and Schneider, prompted by the Astrolabe he adored on Sporing’s wall asked Oechslin if he could make something like that into a wristwatch. 

Thanks to his work on the Farnese, the answer was an emphatic yes, and in 1985 Ulysse Nardin launched the Astrolabium Galileio Galilei which promptly inserted itself into the Guiness Book Of World records for being the watch with the most functions in the world. 

Boom. 

This thing had more moves than you could shake a stick at. 

21 functions, local and solar time, orbits, eclipses, sun, moon, stars, the full works packed into a 40mm case.

It was the inspiration behind modern astrological pieces today. Patek Sky Moon? Celestial?

Nothing without the Ulysse Nardin Astrolabium. 

The watch was an absolute triumph and lifted the new U.N from the post-quartz doldrums to a superpower of complications and manufacture as they added the Planetarium Copernicus (1988) and the Tellurium Johannes Kepler (1992) to the lineup to create the Trilogy of Time. 

A decade after Schneider’s purchase, Ulysse Nardin was well and truly back in business. 

The Freak was launched in 2001 after the renaissance of the 90s and hit the scene at a time where watchmaking was really beginning to look to the new and exciting. 

Richard Mille arrived on the scene in the same year, and AP was busy building its Concept Royal Oaks. 

Switzerland was looking to the future for inspiration. 

Ultra Modern was in, banging standard movements into the same old same old cases was OUT and the Freak was in its absolute element. 

Completely new and avant garde, the Freak had no crown, no dial, and used a linear movement that showcased its gear train and escapement while revolving leisurely around the dial space at one rotation per hour while pointing to the minutes. The hour hand sat beneath the carousel. 

It looked like a spaceship in orbit and blew the industry apart.
Not simply for its looks but because in addition to being unlike anything else, it also featured a new dual direct escapement which used silicone wheels. 
Silicone had never been used before in watchmaking, and the creation of a new escapement was a big deal, a very big deal the likes of which hadn’t been seen since George Daniels invented the Co-Axial escapement in 1976.

The Freak was wound by rotating the case-back, and the time was set by rotating the bezel. 

It was pure genius back then and without doubt one of the most influential watches in recent history. 

Fast forward 23 years with the Freak line-up growing from strength to strength and we arrive at Watches and Wonders 2024 where a particularly dashing YouTube presenter is cutting about the floor bringing you all the best bits from the show, ahem. 

It was at W&W where I met and was delighted to spend a fair whack of time talking to Matthieu Haverlan, the Managing Director of Ulysse Nardin about the brand and admiring the new UN collection, particularly the Freak One which I am subsequently delighted to have in hand for your viewing pleasure today. 

If you haven’t checked out my interview with Matthieu at Watches and Wonders, please do! 

This is the Freak One (ref 2405-500-2A/3A) and its a beast made from DLC coated titanium with a rose gold bezel. 

The rose works an absolute treat to soften the all black look of the watch and both surfaces have a satin matte sheen to them.

It weighs in at not much at all due to the lightweight quality of titanium, and sits at 12mm high so broad but quite slim is the name of the game here. 

It is also completely symmetrical due to the lack of crown. 

The watch doesn’t look as broad as its stats suggest due to the dark case which works to minimise the overall dimensions. 

This doesn’t wear like a Panerai, it wears like a Pelagos.

Following its forefathers, the Freak One has no crown, no dial, and no hands. 

The movement acts to tell the time as it revolves around the dial which is beautifully finished beneath the main event in a deep black guilloche, a pattern which speaks to the level of finishing and proper old school handiwork that U.N is capable of if you look beyond the crazy mechanics.

The expert finishing isn’t just present on the dial though, it follows through the entirety of the watch, which due to its very nature has a LOT of exposed parts, all of which are very clearly finished and detailed from the brushed bridges down to the polished bezel notches and beyond. 

It rivals and in some cases goes beyond that of other high end brands. 

Despite being presented on a very nice black ballistic patterned rubber strap, water resistance is 30 metres so really only splash and rain proof. 

Given the nature of the rotating bezels being integral to the movement, this is entirely forgivable and the strap and its deployant are both comfortable to wear with nothing digging in the underside of the wrist as can sometimes be the case with folding clasps. 

How to tell the time - 

The balance, escapement and gear train are mounted to a bridge underneath the minute hand so if you look to the tip of the train you’ll find an arrow pointing to the minutes on the rehaut as the carousel rotates. 

It can be tricky to concentrate on the time with the Freak because the ever spinning oversized blue silicone oscillator is quite hypnotic.
This should come as no surprise though as the rig is effectively a flying tourbillon, and we all like to look at those! 

The base “dial” is made up of a series of rings - these are not solid state. 

There is a rotating ring towards the centre of the dial which hosts the hour arrow. 

Both pointers have a healthy dose of luminova to guide you in the right direction in low light conditions although general legibility is no problem at all thanks to the contrast of rose gold over matte black.

If you look beneath the bezel at 6 you’ll see a “Freak” button. 

It is not a strap release system. 

Pushing it unlocks the bezel, which you rotate to set the time of the watch, before pushing the button back into place once set to re-lock the bezel again. 

It's totally ingenious and simple as the bezel has some nice notching for grip and ease of use. 

If you flip to the rear then not only do you get a lovely view of the UN automatic calibre 240 powering the watch and providing a not-too-shabby 90 hours of reserve thanks to a massive mainspring that is powered by a completely different type of rotor (called the grinder system, one of the most effective winding systems in the industry) that you can see spinning around the outer edges of the calibre. Nice! 

To wind the Freak, you need to press down on the ring surrounding the case-back in order to engage it to wind mode, and turn the ring in the same direction as the engraved arrows to wind the watch. 

When fully wound, release pressure on the ring and it lifts and locks back into place.

It’s a little like pushing down to open a childproof cap, and prevents accidental winding/movement of the mechanism. 

It’s such a pleasant experience, honestly, having played with the Freak I will never look favourably on a conventional crown again, fiddly awful things. 

I suppose to sum up this review, I would urge you to check out Ulysse Nardin and the Freak One. 

This is our first UN review but having spent a lot of time researching the brand and taking a step away from the mainstream. It is remarkable just how much Ulysse Nardin has given to horology in the past couple of decades. 

Its research on new mechanisms and materials has opened up a huge number of doors for the industry, for example, the use of silicon is almost second nature in manufacturing now, but it started with UN. 

The Freak forged the path for new design, new ways of time telling, new escapements, and used new materials to boot, many of which I haven’t even touched on because the list is so long, but suffice it to say, the new Freak One took home the GHPG Icon award in 2023 with very good reason. 

It is every bit as good as the awards say it is.