For 2019, Ulysse Nardin has decided to make the Freak smaller and more affordable. But don?t worry, it?s still as bonkers as ever.
By Laura McCreddie-Doak

No watch straddles watchmaking?s past and future more dramatically than Ulysse Nardin?s Freak. First launched in 2001, it looks like something Captain Kirk would bring out for special occasions and yet has its roots in the 19th century, when a Coventry-dwelling Dane called Bahne Bonniksen first patented the carrousel tourbillon in 1892. A spoonful of horological Marmite, it has been a watch that, thanks to appearance and price, has often felt out of reach for a lot of watch collectors. 
But now Ulysse Nardin has made its bid for the new, young watch connoisseur by making it easier to use and more affordable, relatively speaking, with the launch of the Freak X.
It still has the iconic ?central bridge as time indicator?, made visible thanks to Superluminova indices and details on the bridge, and, like the Vision, doesn’t have a dial or hands. However, it is smaller than its predecessors ? 43mm as opposed to 45mm – and has ditched the bezel-based time correction, which was a feature of both the Out and the Vision, in favour of a more pedestrian crown.
Powering it is the new UN-230, which is a mash up of the UN-118 and the Freak Vision UN-250. The former was the brand?s first movement with a DIAMonSIL escapement ? a material made from silicon and man-made diamond that Ulysse Nardin created in collaboration ...