Deep black, vivid green – the URWERK UR-101 Green Mamba pares the idea of a watch to signal and shadow. A 50-piece return to roots, it revives one of the brand’s 1997 pillars with a stricter focus: case as shell, display as message. The price is CHF 33,000 excluding tax.
The black PVD-coated steel case recedes, its asymmetry now quieter, while the emerald display does the talking. Hours wander on two satellites across a green arc, minutes ride alongside, all painted with SuperLumiNova. It is functional theater, not decoration. Felix Baumgartner calls it a watch made to “display time differently.” Martin Frei adds the flash of “techno-green” – a hint of cockpit, a snake in the undergrowth.
Inside is calibre UR-1.01V, self-winding, 28 jewels, 4 Hz, and 48 hours of reserve. The movement mix is honest and technical: copper, brass, ARCAP P40. Finishing is restrained – snailing, sandblasting, satin-brushing, with chamfered screw heads – appropriate to a design that wants clarity over flourish.
The case measures 41 mm by 10.3 mm, topped by a glare-proofed, metallised sapphire crystal, and rated to 30 m. It is enough for rain, not bravado. The strap is black rubber with a black calfskin lining, closed by a black DLC-coated steel pin buckle – practical, a little sly, like the name.
Nearly three decades on, the UR-101 still reads as a manifesto: time told as a path, not a pointer. The Green Mamba sharpens that idea with two colors and little else. If you want horology that whispers its intent, then glows when called upon, this is URWERK speaking in its first language.
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