Omega Hints At Speedy Reduced Return With Olympics Special; Tissot's Entry Powermatic 80; Union Glashütte's Lancia Dream; IWC's Year Of The Horse; 40mm Ceramic Luminor GMT; A Blue UN Diver [AIR]

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Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. Who would have thought we get a smaller Speedmaster and smaller Panerai Luminor GMT in one issue?  

In this issue

• Omega Gets Ready For The Winter Olympics In Cortina With A Very Special 38mm Speedmaster

• Tissot Releases An Affordable, Entry-Level, Watch In The Classic Dream Powermatic 80

• Union Glashütte Is Inspired By Iconic Car Dashboard For The Belisar Chronograph Speedster Limited Edition 2025

• It’s That Time Of The Year Again, And IWC Is The First To Introduce A Year Of The Horse Watch

• The New Panerai Luminor GMT Ceramica PAM01460 Is The First Ceramic Panerai In 40mm

• Ulysse Nardin Joins In On The Seddiqi Celebration With A Blue Diver [AIR]

• FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watch School Wednesday: How Incabloc, KIF, and Other Systems Protect the Most Vulnerable Parts of a Watch

👂What’s new

1/

Omega Gets Ready For The Winter Olympics In Cortina With A Very Special 38mm Speedmaster

Last year, Omega showed their full marketing power as the main sponsor of the Summer Olympics. They were everywhere, releasing dozens of watches throughout the year, with some pretty fantastic watches. Well, we’re back in the Olympic calendar. In 100 days, the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 will begin and we’re getting a watch to mark this occasion, the second Cortina-themed watch so far. It’s the Speedmaster 38mm Milano Cortina 2026 and it’s very interesting. While it looks like a new color scheme applied to the existing women-targeted Speedmaster 38mm, there’s a bit more to the case, hinting at a possibility of a new smaller Speedmaster. The return of the Speedmaster Reduced, maybe.

Right now, the majority of the Speedmaster 38mm models are heavily female-oriented, decorated with diamonds, softer shapes on the dial with oval sub-dials, and bi-metal bezels. This new release, however, is much more similar to the regular Speedmaster. The case is made out of stainless steel, with an asymmetrical construction that extends to the right side to protect the pushers and crowns, and it keeps the iconic lyre lugs. The case is smaller than the Speedmaster Professional at 38mm wide and 44.96mm long, but with the same 14.75mm thickness. Just keep in mind that this has an automatic movement which bumps up the thickness always. The case has a polished finish, out back is a caseback with a medallion of the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympics, and on top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal. Gone is the two-tone bezel, replaced with a steel bezel that has a blue ceramic insert with a white enamel tachymeter scale, using the Speedmaster Professional’s dote-over-ninety layout. All of this brings it closer to the Professional than the current 38mm watches. Water resistances is also better than the Speedy Pro at 100 meters.

The dial is also unusual for a Speedmaster. At first, it looks like a stark white dial, but look closer and you’ll see that it has a light blue frosting over it. The sub-dials are varnished and finished with a special azurage technique that makes it look like a freshly prepped ski slope. All of the hardware, including the applied and markers, are finished with a blue CVD. The central seconds hand has a subtle blue gradient and and the date aperture at 6 o’clock has spectacular dark blue Milano Cortina 2026 typography on the 26th of the month. I get it, it’s cheeky, but I would have loved to see it on all the dates.

Inside is the Calibre 3330, based on an ETA calibre that’s a development of the Valjoux 7753, but upgraded with a column wheel and a Co-Axial escapement. It has a free-sprung balance wheel and a silicon spring. Power reserve is 52 hours. It’s also COSC certified, instead of Master Chronometer rated. The watch comes on a new bracelet that also matches the current Speedmaster Professional bracelets.

This is a very interesting watch. While the Speedmaster 38mm Milano Cortina 2026 is a special edition, it’s not limited. However, this particular one won’t stick around. But is it the clearest hint that the Speedy Reduced is coming back? In this format, it could do gangbusters. Price is set at €6,600. See more on the Omega website.

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Tissot Releases An Affordable, Entry-Level, Watch In The Classic Dream Powermatic 80

How do you follow up the PRX, one of the most successful watches of the decade. I would say you don’t, because so many things worked in Tissot’s favor to create the PRX, they are unlikely to repeat it. For a second there, it seemed like they were going to try it, but it’s good to see them release watches that don’t seem to be done for that purpose. What they just released is quite an interesting offering — a very classic three hander with a date, in a couple of conservative colors, with a Swiss made movement, all for under €500, which is quite something in today’s world. This is the new Tissot Classic Dream Powermatic 80, breaking the quartz streak of the Classic Dream.

The case of the Classic Dream is about as simple as can get. A round shape with short, straight, lugs, measuring 40mm wide and 10.23mm thick. On top is a sapphire crystal surrounded by a plain bezel, and the case has a polished finish. There are five case materials available and they are stainless steel, rose gold PVD, yellow gold PVD, two-tone steel and rose gold PVD, two-tone steel and yellow gold PVD. Water resistance is 50 meters.

The dials are equally as classic as the case, with sunray brushed dials that come in blue, black, gold and silver, mixed and matched with the cases to make up seven individual references. You get applied and faceted indices, pointed to by dauphine-style hands, and at 3 o’clock is a date aperture with a white date disc inside. There’s no lume on any of the segments.

Inside, you’ll find the ubiquitous Powermatic 80, which is an automatic movement based on the ETA 2824-2. It beats at 21,600vph and has an 80 hour power reserve. The watches come on 5-row metal bracelet or a classic leather strap.

The new Tissot Classic Dream Powermatic 80 is available now for a pretty fantastic entry price point for Swiss automatic watches — €475 for the steel versions on leather, €495 for steel on steel, and €515 for two tone watches on matching bracelets. See more on the Tissot website.

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Union Glashütte Is Inspired By Iconic Car Dashboard For The Belisar Chronograph Speedster Limited Edition 2025

When I was a kid, I knew someone whose dad very much decided to be the most stereotypical 90s guy. He left the family when my buddy was still an infant, moved to Italy with a younger girlfriend, where I assume he smuggled counterfeit Sergio Tacchini track suits and perfumes. Every so often he would show up, always in a track suit, his hair slicked back and every time with a new car. There was a bunch of cool stuff. Ferraris, huge Benzes and Land Rovers. But the one that stuck in my mind forever was a beautiful white Lancia Delta Integrale, a street version of an 80s rally legend. The car was loud and obnoxious, in the best possible way, but the thing that stuck in my mind the most was the dashboard. It had one of the best looking dashboards I’ve ever seen in a car, a perfect combination of analogue and digital, with sensational colors and crosshairs everywhere. I loved it. So, you can imagine how happy I was when I saw that the new Belisar Chronograph Speedster Limited Edition 2025 from Union Glashütte takes inspiration from this very dashboard. Oh boy…

OK, while the inspiration comes from the 1980s, the dimensions are very much from the early 2000s. The new Belisar Chronograph Speedster comes in a stainless steel case that measures 44mm wide, 15.01mm thick and 52.9mm long. It’s massive and there’s no two ways about it. On top is a domed sapphire crystal , surrounded by an unmarked polished bezel. On the side are pump-style chronograph pushers, and a very significant diamond-shaped crown. At 10 you’ll find a smaller pusher that’s used to correct the date. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The case is very much the same as previous versions, while the dial is all new and a direct quote of the Lancia dashboard. The base is a matte blue-grey, interrupted with yellow Arabic numerals and crosshairs, with a black tachymeter scale on the outskirts. Two of the sub-dials are black, one is white, the date sits in the 6 o’clock sub-dial, and all the hands are black, except the ones on the 3 and 6 o’clock sub-dials, and on the central chronograph hand tip. Love this look more than anything else UG has done in a while.

Inside the watch is the UNG.27.S1 automatic movement, based on the Valjoux 7750. However, Uninon claims they buy the movement in pieces, assemble it themselves and manufacture some of their own components. You get a silicon balance spring and a 65 hour power reserve. It’s decorated with Côtes de Genève and perlage. The watch comes with two straps, a textured blue-grey rubber strap closed with a pin-buckle and a black calfskin strap with a yellow lining, closed with a double-fold clasp.

The new Union Glashütte Belisar Chronograph Speedster Limited Edition 2025 is limited to 388 pieces and priced at €3,300. See more on the Union Glashütte website.

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It’s That Time Of The Year Again, And IWC Is The First To Introduce A Year Of The Horse Watch

Asia is obviously a huge market for watches, and brands love to make special editions for the region. While these are often great watches, I wish they could diversify their inspiration a bit, something you will likely agree with me in the coming months, as brand pile on the Chinese Lunar New Year bandwagon. Every year, brands release usually red and gold watches that feature the animal of the Chinese Zodiac that we get on the Chinese New Year. While the Chinese New Year doesn’t happen until 17th of February 2026, IWC is giving us the first Year of the Horse watch, the Portugieser Automatic 42 Year of the Horse.

On the outside, this is an unchanged Portugieser Automatic 42. It’s a fairly simple stainless steel case that measures 42.4mm wide and 13mm thick, with polished top surfaces and brushed sides. On top is a box-shaped sapphire crystal that’s held down with a thin, smooth bezel. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Much like their previous Chinese Zodiac releases, the watch has a burgundy-coloured dial with gold-plated hands and other hardware. There’s a reason why these watches usually feature red and gold, as they are colors associated with luck, prosperity and passion in China. At 3 o’clock is a 7-day power reserve gauge that at the 12 o’clock position has a silhouette of a horse, done again in gold.

Inside, you’ll find the familiar IWC 52011 automatic movement. It beats at 4Hz and has a really nice 168-hour power reserve (7 days). To do that, the movement uses two barrels, and it also has a Pellaton winding system. The movement also features an intricate 18k gold rotor shaped like a horse in gallop. The watch comes on a black alligator strap with a steel folding clasp with an additional burgundy leather strap.

The new IWC Portugieser Automatic 42 Year of the Horse is a limited edition of 500 pieces, with the price set at €15,300. See more on the IWC website.

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The New Panerai Luminor GMT Ceramica PAM01460 Is The First Ceramic Panerai In 40mm

Panerai watches are, for the most part and especially in the Luminor collection, a bit silly. And I mean that in the best possible way. Me, with my chunky 20cm writs love wearing a 47mm Panerai. Is it huge? Absolutely. Does it look out of place? Maybe. I like it, and it makes me smile, despite the funny size. And I imagine most Panerai watches should bring out a smile for its silly size on people of all sizes. For me, it’s the 47mm. For others, it’s the 42 and 44mm sizes. But what if you have a really small writs? Even the 42 could look too large, in a not so nice way. That’s why Panerai also has the 40mm Luminor, a watch that allows both regular wristed people to wear an appropriate-sized watch and smaller wristed people have some fun. The latest addition to the 40mm lineup is also an expansion of the GMT Ceramica lineup, and it’s the Luminor GMT Ceramica 40mm PAM01460, the first 40mm Luminor with a full ceramic. I was a bit surprised how much I liked this, especially since it gets the GMT and keeps all the important specs.

The new PAM01460 is instantly recognizable as only the size has changed. You still get the 40mm wide cushion-shaped case, here made out of sandblasted black ceramic, with the iconic flip down crown guard on the right side. On the back is a grade 5 titanium screwed back with a smoked sapphire crystal. That’s good news because despite being smaller, this Luminor doesn’t compromise on stats like some others have. You still get 300 meters of water resistance. Thanks!

The dial is as simple as you would expect from a good Luminor. That means you get a sunray brushed black dial that has a sandwich construction, with cutouts for the numerals at 6 and 12 and the stick hour indices. The bottom layer is then painted with Super-LumiNova X2, for a great glow. At 3 o’clock is a date aperture, at 9 are the small seconds and you get a black arrow-tipped, filled with white lume, 12-hour GMT hand that doesn’t need an additional scale to track a second time zone.

Inside, you’ll find the automatic P.900/GMT which you see in other Panerai BiTempo models. It beats at 4Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black calfskin strap with white stitching, closed by their iconic trapezoid buckle that’s made out of titanium with a black DLC coating.

The new Luminor GMT Ceramica PAM01460 is part of the permanent collection and priced at €15,300. See more on the Panerai website.

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Ulysse Nardin Joins In On The Seddiqi Celebration With A Blue Diver [AIR]

Earlier this year, Ulysse Nardin released one of their most interesting watches… well… ever. I wrote at the time that there there are two distinct Ulysse Nardin brands running under the same name. One is dedicated to keeping the tradition of a 150 year old company alive by making elegant timepieces. The other is all about pushing the envelope forward, seeing what’s possible. That’s why have the classical Marine collection and the super modern Diver collection. As part of that more modern collection, we go the Diver [AIR], the lightest mechanical dive watch in the world, weighing in at just 52 grams. That’s including the strap. Now, UN is joining in on the celebration that is happening in the Middle East where Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons, UAE’s leading luxury watch retailer, are celebrating their 75th anniversary. We’ve seen a couple of really cool releases for the Seddiqi anniversary, but this one might be favorite. This is the new Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] Seddiqi 75th Anniversary.

On the outside, it’s a familiar watch. It’s based on the Diver X Skeleton, which was already light at 105 grams, and everything is dedicated to weight loss. It has the same 44mm wide case that has now been cut down a bit to 14.7mm thick, and the materials used are nearly all recycled. And light. They are most certainly light — low-density carbon fibre for the outside and a midcase made out of titanium to give you 200 meters of water resistance. On top is a notched carbon fibre bezel with a dive scale. There’s not much of a dial here, other than a flange, which now gets a light blue color, over the movement that holds the indices, and a central position for the three hands.

Thanks to the watch being skeletonized, you can see how radical the cutting down on weight was and it mostly happened on the movement. They took the existing automatic UN-372 and turned it into the UN-374 with hollowed-out bridges forming the X, a much smaller mass of the top bridge of the mainspring barrel (while retaining 90 hours of power reserve) and using a bunch of titanium for the bridges and mainplate. Despite removing as much material as humanely possible, the movement is still an automatic, with the heavy winding mechanism, because an automatic winding movement is one of the official standards for a dive watch. It’s also super tough, supposedly capable of withstanding impacts of 5,000g. The watch comes on a blue elastic fabric strap with a velcro closure.

The new Ulysse Nardin Diver [AIR] Seddiqi 75th Anniversary is limited to 30 pieces, available only to customers in Seddiqi stores. Price is available on request, but will likely be between €35 and €40,000. See more on the Seddiqi website.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watch School Wednesday: How Incabloc, KIF, and Other Systems Protect the Most Vulnerable Parts of a Watch

The evolution of shock protection from fragile instruments to daily companions. Read it here.

⏲️Wait a minute

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• Sean Williams’s profile of Budimir Šobat, a 60-year-old freediver from Croatia who sucks down pure oxygen to hold his breath for the length of a network television episode, is a complex profile told simply, often in his subject’s own brusque adages. Šobat’s chosen practice is a project of a personal stubbornness that borders on obsession; here, Williams locates the seed of that stubbornness in Saša, Šobat’s daughter, whose medical care requires an intensive commitment from her parents. Williams threads his story with details about niche breath-holding competitions and cultural histories of freediving, but nothing is so captivating as the persistence of Šobat, whose doggedness pushes him beyond his own grim outlook.

• In 2014, Tom Maxwell and his family moved into a “big and strangely cheap” historic house in Hillsborough, North Carolina, on a lush pasture next to a river. They named it Nannie, after the wife of the house’s most famous owner. But as Maxwell recounts in this spooky true tale, it was “thoroughly haunted,” and less than a year later, they broke their lease, left, and never looked back. Afterward, Maxwell learned about the house and surrounding land’s violent history—and all the tortured spirits that roamed there. Originally published in 2016, this Bitter Southerner story also includes moody illustrations by Phil Blank.

• If you don’t read Ed Zitron’s newsletter, chances are someone else has forwarded along one of his graphomaniacal (but also very entertaining) rants about how the AI industry is a shell game run by psychopaths. He’s carved out a healthy niche as an unrepentant technopessimist—albeit one who’s still a publicist for mostly tech clients, including some in the AI space. Tommy Cragg wades headlong into this seeming contradiction for an arch, candid, thoroughly enjoyable profile of Zitron (which also happens to feature, courtesy of tech journalist Casey Newton, one of most vitriolic quotes about the subject I’ve ever read in a profile).

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Vuk