Winding a watch is usually the least interesting thing you do with it. The Oris ProPilot X Gonzo Edition turns it into the main event.

Etched in tiny markings along the edge of the movement's mainspring, roughly 1.8 metres of coiled steel visible through the skeletonised barrel, is Gonzo's face. It's only legible when the watch is fully wound and the coils sit tight against each other. As the power reserve drains and the spring relaxes, the markings drift apart and the image dissolves. Wind it again and he comes back.

That's not a printed dial gimmick. It's a picture that exists only as a function of stored energy, which makes it one of the more inventive things anyone has done with a skeletonised barrel.

Oris Is Three Muppets Deep Now

This is the third entry in Oris's collaboration with Disney's Muppets, following a bright green Kermit and a bright pink Miss Piggy. Both of those took the obvious route: character colour, character face, done.

Gonzo gets different treatment, and the choice of base watch tells you why. Oris put him on the ProPilot X Calibre 115, arguably the most technically serious watch the brand makes. Gonzo debuted on The Muppet Show in 1976 by eating a rubber tyre to the tune of Flight of the Bumblebee, and has spent fifty years as the show's designated lunatic. Pairing the most extreme Muppet with the most extreme watch in the catalogue is a better joke than a green dial.

The Gonzo Details

The character references are threaded through the watch rather than stamped on it:

• The dial runs a gradient through blue, red and yellow, pulled from Gonzo's fur and his wardrobe rather than a single flat character colour

• The power reserve hand is shaped like a chilli pepper, a nod to one of his shirts

• The power reserve scale counts down in "GREAT" days, after his stage name

• The chapter ring is laser-textured to shift appearance with the light, reading as plain metal from one angle and rainbow from another

• The box is Muppets-themed

Only the mainspring etching is truly hidden, and it's the one most people will actually want to see.

What the ProPilot X Gonzo Edition Is Underneath

Strip the theme away and this is a serious piece of engineering.

• Case: 44mm multi-piece titanium, 12.6mm thick, 52mm lug-to-lug

• Bezel: engine-turned Grade 5 titanium, harder than the case material

• Movement: Oris Calibre 115, in-house, hand-wound, 21,600 vph

• Power reserve: 240 hours, ten days, with a non-linear indicator

• Crystals: sapphire front and back

• Water resistance: 100m

• Bracelet: multi-piece titanium with an Oris folding clasp

• Reference: 01 115 7759 7180-Set

• Price: $10,500

Calibre 115 is worth dwelling on. A ten-day reserve from a hand-wound movement is a genuine achievement, and the non-linear indicator is the clever part: it stretches the scale as the reserve empties, so the last days are read more precisely than the first. That matters on a watch you have to wind yourself.

The titanium construction also does real work at 44mm. A case this size in steel would be punishing; in titanium it stays wearable, and the 52mm lug-to-lug is the number to check against your wrist rather than the diameter.

Who This Is For

At $10,500 this sits well into serious watch territory, and that's the tension. It's a ten-thousand-dollar in-house hand-wound skeleton with a ten-day reserve, and it has a Muppet on the mainspring.

That combination will delight some people and baffle others, which is probably the point. Nobody buys this by accident. The Kermit and Miss Piggy editions were approachable character watches; this one asks you to care about barrel architecture and find it funny at the same time.

If you're in on both counts, there isn't anything else like it. The mainspring trick is the kind of idea that could easily have been a sticker and instead became a mechanical function, and Oris deserves credit for taking the harder route on a watch that didn't require it.

For pilot watches at a more accessible entry point, Watch Gang's pilot watch collection covers the category broadly, and the Laco lineup is worth a look if the aviation heritage rather than the theatrics is what draws you.