Doppel

The Doppel line is the historical and technical heart of Habring2, and is directly tied to Richard Habring's professional career: in the 1990s, while working for IWC Schaffhausen, Habring developed a cam-based rattrapante (split-seconds) chronograph mechanism, simpler and cheaper to produce than traditional solutions, which IWC patented and used in several of its own models, including the Pilot Doppelchronograph. When that patent expired in 2012, Habring — by then heading his own manufacture together with Maria Kristina — was finally able to reuse the same technical idea under his own name on the dial.

Thus was born the Doppel 2.0 (2012), produced in a limited series of 20 pieces against the company's usual output of about 12 pieces a year, as a tribute to the twenty years that had passed since the original mechanism was developed. The caliber, named A08MR, was a manual-winding base with rattrapante derived from the Valjoux 7750, lacking the traditional column wheel in favor of better long-term serviceability. The model won the Sports Watch Prize at the 2012 Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève, a significant recognition for a manufacture that was still very small.

In subsequent years the line evolved with the Doppel 3.0 (2013), which continued on the same technical platform, up to the Doppel-Felix (from 2017), a version that replaced the Valjoux-derived base with the in-house A11R/A11RD caliber, developed and produced entirely in Austria, while nonetheless keeping dimensions compatible with the Valjoux 7750 to make servicing easier for third-party watchmakers.