Welcome to Watch Guy Watches, GQ’s monthly curation of high-end timepieces for the true watch nerds among us. This January, MB&F rethinks its Legacy Machine, Hublot goes full reptilian, Breguet gets its engines turning, and IWC turns its famed Mark-series pilot’s watch green.
2025 is shaping up to be quite the year in the watch industry.
Plenty of brands are marking significant anniversaries, which typically means special-edition watches are on the way. We’ve got Audemars Piguet’s 150th, Vacheron Constantin’s 270th, Breguet’s 250th, and Rolex’s GMT-Master’s 70th birthday. But it’s a high-end independent with a reason to party that’s provided us with of a pair knockout watches of the year: MB&F’s Legacy Machine Perpetual and Sequential Flyback ‘Longhorns.’
MB&F—Maximilian Büsser & Friends—opened up shop in Geneva in 2005 and has been crafting stunning watches and clocks for two decades. What was once a seat-of-the-pants operation is now a bona fide horological enterprise with 60 employees that consistently debuts some of the most mind-bending timepieces in the world. The ‘Longhorns’ watch gets its name from the extra-lengthy lugs attached to the case that were previously only included in an expensive prototype that sold at Phillips for 277,200 Swiss francs (roughly $300,000). While the regular-production LMs were made without these Longhorns, MB&F is bringing them back just in time for the brand’s 20th anniversary.
Now, MB&F is fitting these long “horns” to its LM Perpetual Longhorn and LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn watches. Like the one sold at Phillips, the lugs have two holes drilled in the lugs so the wearer can adjust the bracelet to their preference. Both of these watches are executed in stainless steel and fitted with black (rather than white enamel) subdials, with the LM Perpetual measuring 44mm by 17.5mm thick and the Sequential Flyback measuring 44mm by 18.2mm thick. (Neither is for the faint of wrist, to be sure, but the strap position optionality should certainly help with respect to comfort.)
Developed by star watchmaker Stephen McDonnell, the movements in both Legacy Machine models are by now the stuff of horological legend. (The QP model in particular won the Aiguille d’Or category at the GPHG, watchmaking’s Oscars.) Easily set and laid out to maximize legibility, they feature prominent, curved balance bridges displayed front and center on the dial along with rhodium-plated dial plates that make for a uniform aesthetic. The subdials—executed here in black rather than the model’s typical white enamel—make for a futuristic look that’s balanced somewhat by the more classically informed white Roman-numeral typography.
Limited to 20 pieces each, these stunning creations carry a price of 168,000 Swiss francs ($183,603). And before you go crying foul, lamenting how a small change to a watch’s lugs can deserve the dedication of an entirely fresh anniversary model, consider the years long development process. The brand shelved these lugs entirely for over 15 years until it could figure out a system that made them genuinely usable in addition to simply beautiful. That’s laudable attention to detail.
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