New Release: HYT H4 Gotham

It is a tale of the black abyss and lucid red blood.

HYT have always done things their way, getting rid of hour hands and introducing liquids inside the mechanism. All bonkers if you ask me. Undeniably they have created numerous fantastic pieces that make a lot of us weak at the knees.

That is what a good product or experience should be, it heightens our experience and awareness of whatever it may be. Some chefs would say their idea is to bring back childhood memories but in a different form, through the use of taste, sound and smell. The great magicians say they wanted to amaze people and to bring a smile to their spectators.

All of those boxes have been ticked by HYT, to make timepieces that enthrall us, then they let show us a glimmer of the workings behind a magic trick. In this case the magic trick is the mechanism in the new H4 Gotham. Previous models of HYT timepieces, excluding the wacky H3, featured the hour indices around an inner chapter ring. Funnily enough that takes a lot of room where the dial would be. So even though the watch itself is ‘partially’ openworked it is still rather limited.

So where can we get space? The bezel is one such space, so for the H4 Gotham, the hour markers have been moved out to the bezel. This leaves the dial to be even more open and reveals almost all of the gear train, some of the mainspring barrel and not forgetting the all important bellows. The case has also been expanded to a massive 51mm, that always helps with space!

So, back to the black and red, this was inspired from the Dracula piece that HYT did the end of 2014. For me, this is a colour combination made in heaven, and it is nice to see how HYT have used it to great effect here. The abyssal black is in fact a new carbon material that is ridiculously strong and rigid. Also known as 3DTP, it shows the fibres of carbon within its structure and has a lovely matte finish to the surface. Soft and silky to the touch, without the coldness of metal.

This is refinement at its best, hopefully we will be able to get a piece to review soon!

Technical Data

Case:	3DTP™ carbon diameter: 51 mm height: 17.9 mm rubber sheathed screw-down DLC titanium crown DLC titanium dome at 6 o’clock convex sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on the dial side screw-down sapphire case-back water resistant to 50 metres.	Movement:	skeleton mechanical hand-wound movement, HYT exclusive calibre 28,800 vib/h, 4 Hz, 35 jewels bridges hand-bevelled and adorned with Côtes de Genève, rhodium-plated bellows 65-hour power reserve
Dial:	unstructured, fluid hour display minute & seconds dial, and sapphire power reserve black minute indexes and numerals black hour dial, with grey numerals luminescent black minute hand regulator at 12 o’clock small seconds wheel at 9.30 power reserve indicator at 2.30
Functions:	retrograde fluidic hour, minute and seconds	Ref:	151-CB-03-RF-RN; 50-piece limited edition
Strap:	black rubber base with integrated NOMEX™ fabric centre, and black DLC titanium