Hands-On The Chopard Quattro Mark IV — The Most Impressive Release Of Watches And Wonders 2025

The Chopard Quattro Mark IV is a 39mm in diameter, precious metal dress watch powered by the four-stacked barrel caliber L.U.C 98.09-L, resulting in nine days of power reserve. That's objective. Subjectively, the 2025 Quattro is the best new time-only or time-and-date watch I've handled this year. That's right, better than Patek's latest Calatrava, lauded by my boss Ben as "the best Calatrava in a generation," better than whatever competitor is popping into your head right now. I am probably not allowed to call Chopard's Quattro a Calatrava, but I can say that it does what a Calatrava should do better than most Calatravas offered by the Calatrava brand this century. Let me tell you why.

Nuance and complexity are no longer a part of our culture. Buzzy, hype releases are easy to have an opinion on without nuance or complexity. New watches from brands that your uncle might recognize at Easter brunch might get more views and comments here on Hodinkee. But a four-barrel, nine-day power reserve, in-house caliber inside of a bassine-shaped precious metal case offered by what many may still consider a "jewelry brand" takes a bit more work to dig into. The Quattro requires complex understanding and nuanced thinking. And that's what makes it great.

Chopard was founded in 1860 as a watchmaker, then became famous as a jeweler, and since 1996 has been making serious waves again as a watchmaker. While I just made the same mistake, the regular criticism of Chopard being a jewelry house isn't totally fair. The brand's first jewelry collection was introduced in 1985, after 125 years of watches. And it was only 11 years later that Chopard debuted its first L.U.C movement, the caliber 1.96, a Michel Parmigiani design lauded as "perhaps the finest automatic movement being made in Switzerland today" by Walt Odets on Timezone in 2002.

The brand's successes in jewelry are used against it in the minds of watch buyers. I hope this is mostly subconscious, but the harsh reality is that fewer people aspire to merely look after a Chopard for the next generation, and that's a shame.

Vats of internet ink have been spent on that first L.U.C caliber, the 1.96 (including here on Hodinkee), and rightfully so, but Chopard's sophomore release was no Speed 2: Cruise Control. Introduced in 2000, the Quattro was the result of Chopard's watchmaking team looking at their first movement and asking, "Ok, but how can we make the power reserve longer, like, way longer?" Supposedly, Daniel Bolognesi, now Head of Watchmaking, jokingly suggested removing the 1.96's microtor to make room for more barrels, and that's exactly what the team ended up doing. The result was the caliber 1.98 with four stacked barrels, two of which were roughly located in the microtor's previous location, and the L.U.C Quattro ref. 16/1863 or "Mark I" — a 38mm in diameter limited edition of 1860 pieces across yellow gold, rose gold, white gold, and platinum. As with the first run of 1860 caliber 1.96 limited editions, it doesn't seem Chopard produced the full number, making both very rare and collectible.

The first update to the Quattro came in 2015, with the "Mark II," and while the 43mm case diameter and proud Roman numerals were probably on trend then, we can move on quickly. And we can also continue to move quickly past the "Mark III" of 2018. The quality of the movement is, of course, the same for these two middle generations, but the aesthetics and sizing are just not for me. A bonus shout-out to the Quattro Table Clock of 2012 because, why not?

New for Watches and Wonders 2025, the latest Quattro, now officially titled the Mark IV, is undoubtedly a return to form for the model. It's a release that loosely follows the playbook of the L.U.C 1860 of 2023, although it strays further away from the territory of "reissues." Rather than recreating that first and now extremely collectible Quattro, Chopard has thoroughly rethought the case and dial, as a part of a new aesthetic direction for the L.U.C collection. When the initial press release hit my inbox, it included only the rose gold variant (informing a quick Introducing article), but when I visited the Chopard booth, I was greeted with this gorgeous platinum option — a perfect surprise.

This new direction, first messaged around January's Flying T Twin Perpetual and Lunar One releases, is music to my ears. If there is a criticism to be levied towards Chopard's L.U.C history, it is that middle bit, between the last few years and the turn of the 21st century — a time when the brand was finding its personal style, let's call it. Look no further than the Mark II and III Quattros for proof; classic and timeless aren't the first words that come to mind. However, the changes that Chopard plans to slowly integrate across the L.U.C collection include a smarter "bassine" case shape with more pronounced lugs and, editorializing here, an overall simple, refined dial design ethos.

After experiencing the new L.U.C case shape in the Chopard booth, via both the Lunar One and the Quattro, I am pleased to report that it does what it says on the tin. Many brands like to talk about a sleeker case redesign that "allows for ease and comfort of wear for the modern enthusiast," but few actually follow through with that verbose promise. Here, Chopard backs it up. I'm a watch lover who prefers a case diameter south of 38mm, yet I couldn't take the Quattro off my wrist. No, I mean it, I wore it for my entire hour-long meeting. I'll credit the "bassine" midcase — where the base measures a few millimeters smaller than the full 39mm of the domed bezel — for my immediate pleasure in wearing this watch, one I feared I would find too big.

The original Quattro's case shape is essentially the same as the first cal. 1.96 watches and was already revived with the Lucent Steel 1860. I'm glad Chopard resisted the temptation to fit the new Quattro into this mold. It's a great case, don't get me wrong, but it feels very neo-vintage — because, well, it is. The de-integrated and now welded lugs are visually congruous top down yet distinct from the side in a slightly less dramatic fashion than, say, a Patek ref. 2523.

Overall, I found the new case to be very well thought out. It gave me the impression that production costs and efficiencies were not considered in the development process. When you're spending almost $50,000 on a simple watch, that's a feeling you're looking for. One small detail that Chopard has begun to add to all of its platinum watches is the small bee "hallmark" hand-engraved between the bottom lugs — potentially a reference to the various precious metal animal hallmarks of old in Switzerland and France.

While the L.U.C collection is known for its guilloché dial work, you're bound to explore other techniques when you own one of the best dial manufacturers in the world, Metalem. The Quattro features a frosted texture previously seen in the limited edition Full Strike Titanium, although not by many. The finish is a welcome curveball in my eyes, presenting softly and subtly in person. Especially with a dial of this size, guilloché can start to be a bit much, so while a Quattro variant with a guilloché center portion would be welcomed, the choice for frosted does make sense and goes along with the "modernized" L.U.C direction.

I keep returning to this word, but the hands and hour markers, too, have been simplified in a great way. The "herringbone-type" markers are rightly sized, and the "dauphine fusée" main handset has been slightly redesigned and downsized compared to last year's XPS Forest Green and even our XPS 1860 Officer Limited Edition For Hodinkee — both going a long way towards that simplified feeling on the wrist.

Flipping the Quattro over, we're greeted by not only an ingenious design, with four jeweled barrels stacked in pairs, Phillips terminal curve balance spring, and Swan's neck adjustable stud carrier, but a level of finishing that is nearly unmatched elsewhere in the industry. If matched, it is via brands with greater cachet and, frankly, at a higher price point. Carrying the Poinçon de Genève, or Geneva Seal, it's hard to beat this in terms of finishing. Furthermore, the Quattro is chronometer-certified by COSC, which is expected for an L.U.C, but it is a real achievement for a watch with a nine-day power reserve — the cal. L.U.C 98.09-L combats the potential accuracy issues that come with a total mainspring length of 1.885 meters by operating the barrels in series, one switching in progressively as the last runs out of juice.

As for the price? It's $38,400 in ethical 18k rose gold and $47,900 in platinum. Let me be the first to inform you that the Chopard Quattro Mark IV is an expensive watch. It's clear who Chopard sees as a competitor to the L.U.C collection via this pricing. For example, a Lange 1 will set you back $44,700 in rose gold. On day one of Watches and Wonders 2025, the Quattro was joined by two simple platinum watches: the $47,135 Patek ref. 6196P-001 and the $49,900 Zenith G.F.J. — neither offering a date complication nor nine days of running time on a single wind.

Be it my personal preference for an underdog or a deep love and bias for when Chopard nails a L.U.C release, I meant what I said when I chose this as my pick of the Watches and Wonders 2025 litter. But there's something slightly more than "this is Rich Fordon's favorite" going on with the Quattro.

Through the in-house-ization of the watch world over the past decade, some brands have simply created lesser products in favor of making more components in-house. Chopard has vertically integrated in the right way, focusing its manufacturing efforts towards the higher-end of the watchmaking (and price) spectrum. That now decades-long business direction allows for the Quattro. This watch is nuanced, complex, and certainly influenced by the ever-growing "independent" watch mania fueled by names like Philippe Dufour, FP Journe, Rexhep Rexhepi, and Simon Brette. To see a larger brand offer a watch where I am comfortable naming those names in a Hands-On article is commendable. And, by the way, all that nuance aside, the Quattro is such a pleasure to wear, I can't shake it.

For more information, visit Chopard online.