Celebrating Ten Years of Legacy Machines with LMX

Max Büsser is no stranger to taking risks, especially horological ones. After reviving Jaeger-LeCoultre as a brand and then designing and building the Harry Winston Opus collection, an underlying unhappiness with the watch industry and his own need to create led him to launch his brand, Maximilian Büsser & Friends in 2005. Under this concept the “Friends” are incredibly important. These were not just random friends, these were powerhouse watchmakers like Kari Voutilainen, Jean-François Mojon, Eric Coudray and Stephen McDonnell. With his friends, Max was driven by his desire to take classic watchmaking techniques and turn them into three-dimensional mechanical and kinetic art.

Max brought this vision to life through his Horological Machines and vowed to never again create a round watch. Max built his team at MB&F on the idea of only building Horological Machines, so when Max began thinking about launching the Legacy Machine series and creating a round watch at MB&F, his team was opposed to the idea. It was a departure from the designs of the Horological Machines that had brought them to MB&F.

Max summed this up during his talk at SIHH in 2019. “My team and me battled like crazy. None of my team wanted to do this. ‘We have not joined MB&F to do a round watch,’ I heard. Well, I wanted to do this because it is my tribute to the great master watchmakers of the 18th and 19th century, which have made me love this industry.”

In the end, however, the Legacy Machine (LM) series would be produced starting with Legacy Machine 1 in 2011. Legacy Machines aren’t a radical departure from the Horological Machines, but they are something deeper, something more personal, cerebral: Max Büsser’s love letter to watchmaking.

LM1 expressed the truest meaning of the “& Friends” in the brand name. Max collaborated with Kari Voutilainen and Jean-François Mojon to create a legacy machine that is reminiscent of pocket watches, with two floating dials representing completely independent time zones, and a flying balance wheel, suspended in the middle of the dial. The need for two independent time zones was born of a personal desire. Max’s mother is Indian and Max wanted a way to see two separate time zones so he could account for a half of an hour time change, as exists in India. This personal desire is something that is repeated throughout the LM series. The finishing work completed by Kari Voutilainen is beyond belief: it is stunning. The judges from the Foundation of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, or GPHG, agreed and LM1 took home Best Men’s Watch and the Public Prize in 2012.

For LM2, MB&F again teamed up with Kari Voutilainen and Jean-François Mojon. No longer would the movement be hidden, it would be out on display, and not just any movement, a dual balance wheel movement. Watchmakers of 250 years ago solved the problem of ineffective lubricants and lower precision manufacturing of components by having multiple balance wheels. The goal was to create a watch that uses two flying balance wheels which beat at their own rate and to use regulators to harness that energy. A differential then evens out the frequencies. The stretched lacquered dial and blued hands let you know this is a Legacy Machine, but again, it feels like classic watchmaking that Max has brought his ‘benevolent god of steampunk’ mentality to. If one LM really feels like it is coming to life, it has to be LM2.

The third iteration of the series, LM101, is the classic dress watch of the LM series. Kari Voutilainen helped build LM101, but the most significant accomplishment of LM101 is that the MB&F designed this movement entirely in house. With the balance wheel as the prominent feature of this watch, the power reserve added a nice complication to it. This watch feels classic and timeless and really feels like a watch you could wear every day and never tire of.

The fourth release of the LM series is possibly my favorite: LM Perpetual. Max worked with Irish watchmaker Stephen McDonnell to expand on McDonnell’s perpetual calendar movement. The movement is ingenious, it not only protects the watch from user error, it protects the user from the watch by simplifying every function. This watch is one of the most frequently referenced MB&F pieces, with almost the entire inner workings of the pushers exposed, Max wanted to keep the flying balance wheel as part of this watch to ensure continuity within the LM series. Stephen McDonnell did not design the movement with a flying balance wheel and he and the team had to re-engineer the movement to feature a flying balance wheel. MB&F took home another GPHG award for Best Calendar Watch in 2016.

The LM Split Escapement is really one of the most genius pieces in the lineup. For this piece, Max wanted to split the balance wheel from the escapement, a tricky feat of engineering. The flying balance wheel is actually connected to the escapement anchor and escape wheel on the casebook side of the watch. Max leaned on Stephen McDonnell to help him build this movement. The effect is a balance wheel that seems like it is floating inside the domed sapphire and the effect is breathtaking. This watch is classic and elegant, displaying date, time, and power reserve. The watch feels clean, but not sterile. It’s just a beautiful piece of watchmaking, with the hand-frosted dials being a favorite due to their texture and depth which is second to none.

Next came the first dedicated ladies watch from MB&F, designed in gratitude to the women in Max’s life. The LM Flying T is a smaller watch with no harsh angles, a flying tourbillon, an incredibly domed sapphire, and a dial that is inclined at 50° so as to only be truly visible to the wearer, an intimate connection to the watch and a shared feeling that the watch is on your time. The sun winding rotor is incredible and the watch offers the feeling that the watch only keeps time for the wearer. This watch is everything a watch should be: stunning to behold, deeply personal, and incredibly beautiful. It truly feels like a wearable work of art.

Building on the success of the Flying T, Max teamed up with old friend and master of the gyro-tourbillon, Alex Coudray, to build a new triple axis tourbillon. The pair would go on to break a world record and would build the world’s fastest triple axis tourbillon. The axes revolve in 8 seconds, 12 seconds, and 20 seconds. Now think about Thunderdome’s triple-axis tourbillon rotating all day long. The amount of precision involved in designing this system from both a watchmaking and manufacturing standpoint is incredible. The gyro tourbillon moves on three-axes all day long and withstands those forces over time. This is a watch I significantly underestimated when it was released, I did not understand the watch then, but having seen Eric’s work with Purnell, I feel I understand this watch better and I am in awe of it. Max and Eric have known each other for over twenty-four years and vowed one day to work together. They were finally able to work on a project together and with Kari’s influence, this watch is a marvel of modern watchmaking.

While not a new movement, Max did launch the Legacy Machine Perpetual EVO during summer 2020. This watch is again born of a personal desire: Max wanted a watch to wear to the pool and to the beach. This re-imagination of the LM Perpetual, Max hinted, was the first of the Legacy Machines to be given the EVO treatment, suggesting that other models may receive this treatment in the future to be made into watches for everyday life.

Ten years later, Max continues to write his love letters to watchmaking in the form of both Horological Machines and Legacy Machines. It is amazing for an independent watchmaker to continue developing a series, let alone two such different lines as Horological Machines and Legacy Machines under the same brand. For the tenth anniversary of the Legacy Machine, Max has decided to reimagine the LM1 and launch a new watch, LMX. X stands not only for the roman numeral for ten and as a symbol of symmetry, but it is the crossroads of the first decade of Legacy Machines and the next generation to come.

In celebrating 10-years of Legacy Machines, LMX pays homage to the LM1, the original horological machine with its dual time zone format. LMX, however, features a series of upgrades. The dials are tilted vertically, similar to Thunderdome. This feature uses conical gears to transfer energy from the horizontal to vertical plane. Also new to the LMX is a bespoke balance wheel, a 13.4mm wheel with inertia blocks instead of screwed balances, allowing for greater accuracy in regulating the movement.

Max continues the use of a domed sapphire crystal, drawing from LM Perpetual, Flying T, and Thunderdome to expose more of the watchmaking beneath the baseplate. This feels like an evolution of the LM and something I hope Max and team continue to develop throughout future iterations of LM.

LMX features a massive power reserve of 168 hours and again references LM1 with a vertical power reserve. LMX’s vertical power reserve indicator has a few new tricks, however. The vertical power reserve indicator has two scales to help the owner understand the wound state. For LMX, the power reserve has a scale for both days of the week, as well as a numerical scale from 1-7. Not satisfied to copy LM1, LMX’s power reserve indicator rotates, to allow the wearer to determine if they want to see the numerical representation of the power reserve, or the days of the week. This is done by continuing to wind the watch once fully wound.

LMX also nods to the success of previous Legacy Machines. For a watch series to have run for ten years is a success, but for a watch series to run for ten years with an independent brand is an amazing achievement. LMX comes in two flavors: an 18-piece edition in red gold with black NAC treatment on the baseplate and bridges and a 33-piece edition in grade 5 titanium with a green CVD treatment on the plates and bridges.

The LMX feels like the future of Legacy Machines: more exposed watchmaking, more details from previous pieces, more all-out MB&F goodness. As an independent brand, MB&F has created two distinct product lines: Horological Machines and Legacy Machines. LMX represents the evolution of the Legacy Machine. And Max continues to draw in his previous creations to iterate on and develop his ideas and his watches. I look forward to this next generation of Legacy Machines and to more of the existing Legacy Machines receiving the EVO treatment.

What we’re celebrating isn’t the launch of a new timepiece. It is the continuation of Max’s creative vision of turning traditional watchmaking techniques into three-dimensional mechanical art. By the way, he gets to work on these projects with his friends, which is pretty cool, hence the Maximilian Büsser and Friends moniker. We are really celebrating Max’s belief in, and his need to, create a series of round watches that celebrate the great master watchmakers whose work allowed Max to have a career, a craft, and a creative vision. This celebration wouldn’t be possible without his friends, and without his team believing in him. LMX is an anniversary celebration of Max’s dream.