For any brand, success or failure depends on brand credibility, the right product, and the right price. Oris is not one of the best-known names in watchmaking, but it has a lot of brand value, carefully nurtured by a move towards vertical integration – making more and more of its product components in-house. The Oris Williams Chronograph Carbon Fibre Extreme is the latest watch produced as part of Oris’ partnership with the Williams racing team, a collaboration that has been running since 2003. In this case, it’s a standard ETA 7750 movement, but in an original carbon case.

The case middle is made using a technology patented by Oris. What makes it different from the many other carbon fibre watches? This is difficult to say. “Fibre waves” are used, rather than shreds. Sheets of woven carbon fibre are manually layered in moulds, and then saturated in polymer. The case is then kiln-fired under pressure at 130°C. The process takes place in two phases. The technique is derived from Formula 1 car construction.

Whatever the differences between Oris’ technique and that used by IWC, Hublot, Panerai, Richard Mille and all the other brands using carbon, the Oris case is tough, rigid and has an excellent water resistance, 10 bar, 100 metres. The case middle – the part made in carbon – is very light, just 7.2 grams.

The watch, 44 mm in diameter, is completed by components in polished black DLC-coated titanium, used for the bezel, crown, pushers and screw-down caseback. The dial has an interesting layout in which the counters resemble car dashboard instruments, with zero at bottom left and numerals and indications in two tones, reinforcing the illusion. The highlight colour is blue, a hallmark of the Williams team, used for the chronograph seconds hand, chronograph minutes on the top subdial, and chronograph hours on the bottom subdial. The visual effect is excellent, and very legible, with SuperLuminova on the hour and minute hands, and on the hour indices. The black rubber strap has a black DLC-coated titanium folding clasp.

ETA 7750 movement

The Oris Williams Chronograph Carbon Fibre Extreme case is powered by the self-winding Oris Calibre 674, a modified version of ETA’s 7750 calibre. The movement can be seen through the sapphire caseback, with Oris’ characteristic red oscillating weight. It runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour, 4 Hertz, with a power reserve of 48 hours.

Price and reference

The Oris Williams Chronograph Carbon Fibre Extreme, reference 01 674 7725 8764 RS, costs 4,200 Swiss francs.