The IWC Portugieser Chronograph Replica has enjoyed strong popularity for many years and is one of IWC’s bestselling models.IWC responded by filling a 41.5-mm-diameter steel case with Caliber 74H4, which was originally used in pocketwatches and is more than 38 mm in diameter.
This hand-wound wristwatch was given a neatly designed dial with a railway-style minutes circle, Arabic numerals and a subdial for the seconds at 6 o’clock. In an era when gents preferred to wear small and elegant wristwatches, the Portugieser must have looked like a gigantic measuring instrument strapped to its wearer’s wrist.
With a diameter of 41 mm, the AAA Portugieser Replica Watch is nonetheless 1 mm smaller than the Portugieser Automatic. This size was formerly considered to be large, but nowadays 41 mm is a normal size for a wristwatch with a built-in stop-seconds function.
This caliber was designed to display the continually running seconds on a subdial at 9 o’clock. To achieve the desired arrangement with the small seconds at the dial’s South Pole, the elapsed-hours counter had to be removed and replaced by a mechanism for the continually running seconds. Such modifications in movements have long been standard procedure at IWC Replica Watches.