There is a straightforward logic to what Lorige does, and it is worth stating plainly: the watches are built from the actual carbon/carbon brake pads used in competition by the Heart of Racing Team’s Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercars. Not inspired by motorsport, not styled after it. The material itself comes off the car. The two new BL-Evolution references, the “Hyperblack” and the “Bleu Asphalte,” continue that practice, with each piece engraved with the specific race in which its brakes competed. Both editions are limited to 50 pieces worldwide.
The “Hyperblack” is the bolder of the two. British Racing Green neoralite fills the numerals, picking up the livery colors of the No. 007 and No. 009 Valkyries, and the marbled surface of the carbon/carbon dial does most of the talking. The movement is the LOR-DB02, finished in a Duo-Tone treatment that took Chronode SA four months to develop exclusively for Lorige, pairing a micro-blasted black PVD main plate with rhodium-plated Geneva stripes and hand chamfering. The “Bleu Asphalte” takes its name from the track surface and draws its carbon/carbon from IMSA prototype brakes, with a LOR-DB01 caliber dressed in micro-blasted rhodium-plated plates and NAC treated Geneva stripes. Both versions share a new hand-grained asphalt-textured dial that gives the BL-Evolution a rawer, more tactile presence than before.
Under the dial, both references run on the same manual LOR-DB double-barrel caliber, good for 168 hours of power reserve shown through a combined hand and day window display. The 175 components are assembled by hand in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and a dynamometric crown keeps the precision mechanism protected during daily use. It is the most carefully finished version of the BL-range Lorige has produced, and the most direct argument for what the brand is actually building toward.
