Introducing The WRK ACF-02

When I was a younger man, I would try to live a perfectly balanced life, never going too far in one direction or the other with food, work, and play.

Living right down the middle seemed to be the way to go to be happy, healthy, and successful. Aristotle once said, "Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency."
I took his advice quite literally for a time but soon realised how difficult it is to live life in the middle, even when focusing on it completely. After many frustrating years I concluded that instead of striving for balance, I should instead focus on constant and consistent re-balance. Maybe it’s ok to go to the extremes, as long as you come back to the centre eventually. Like eating a whole pizza and then walking it off the next day. Back and forth, up and down, in and out. Maybe the way forward is to become a human metronome, tick-tocking to life's innate rhythms. I realised life is best lived in motion, after all, a balance wheel doesn’t stay still, it rotates to the extremes and is pushed back to the centre by its spring. This is how I try to live my life now.

But what if you wanted to live in both extremes at once? Physically impossible with our current knowledge of quantum mechanics (stay tuned) but in the watch world, it may not be so far-fetched. The latest release from WRK, the ACF-02 strikes the perfect balance between hyper-technical engineering and perfect everyday comfort. It’s a watch that would have sent Aristotle’s ancient Greek mind into a frenzy.

Introducing The WRK ACF-02

Following on from their incredible first piece, the ACF-01. Watchmaking Research Kinematics has launched their new, more approachable, but in no way less impressive ACF-02. Again available in a souscription model, It brings its blend of automotive design, lightweight materials and obsessive ergonomics to a wider audience. And I’m all for it.

WRK have described their new release as the perfect balance of performance and comfort, but as we discussed earlier it’s an incredibly difficult task to straddle the golden mean. So difficult in fact that it often comes with significant, and even catastrophic compromise.

Performance AMB-01/1 - Engineered by Telos Watch

Pushing the ACF-02 to the performance engineering extreme is the AMB-01/1, a micro-rotor automatic double-barrel movement developed by Telos watch. Founded in 2009 by Franck Orny and Johnny Girardin, they’ve developed movements for numerous undisclosed prestigious brands and as an independent complications house, they have worked on some pretty impressive watches. The Opus 14 with its Jukebox complication is one of the more elaborate examples. The calibre has three interchangeable stacked dials (records) and runs on its own mainspring and gear train. It’s absolutely wild, unnecessary and awesome. Telos knows what they’re doing when it comes to extreme engineering.

When it comes to the AMB-01/1 however, their expertise has been channelled into a much more down-to-earth movement. It’s an ultra-thin, micro-rotor calibre with double barrels and an open-worked architecture. The barrels being in parallel as opposed to working independently, as well as the overall efficiency of the gear train has allowed them to guarantee a power reserve of 72 hours. That’s a bold statement and one that no other brand I can think of has made. Nasko and Caroline, the owners of WRK mentioned that the actual power reserve is closer to 80 hours, so having that buffer has given them the confidence to commit fully to their claims.

As with the ACF-01, the focus on lightness is ever present and they’ve been able to bring down the weight of the AMB-01/1 to an insane 8.24 grams. That’s the same as 1.5 seedless grapes, in case you were wondering. Sweet.

The decoration is minimal on the dial side and there are cutout sections on the case back bridges, presumably for weight optimisation. You’re not getting any polished bevels or Côte de Genève here. It would look totally out of place anyway and I don’t miss it.

Nature Driven Comfort

The case continues the philosophy of their previous watch and brings comfort and function to the forefront. At 41mm and in bead-blasted grade 5 titanium it’s feather light once again. Coming in at 20.22 grams, case and case-back, including crystals. That’s just four grapes, seedless of course.

The case profile is a little more minimal this time around, with no cut-out for the crown and minimal chamfers on the underside. It’s all about maximising comfort and leaning into the nature-driven design they are known for. Pick up a pebble worn down over a few centuries and you’re pretty close to the feel of the ACF-02.

Contributing to the comfort, you can have your strap in either Tech fabric and Nubuck (leather), or Alcantara. Considering such effort has been made to make the watch light, I would go for the Alcantara, it’s up to four times lighter than Nubuck. If you’re going to do it, you might as well go all the way.

So did they do it? Did WRK manage to balance ultimate performance and comfort? Well, until we can get it on wrist it’s hard to know. But all signs point to yes.

Aristotle was a man (like me?) who attempted to exist right down the middle of life. To great success? I’m not so sure. He was also a man that said “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Maybe like him, I’m a fan of the idea of balance but in practice, I find it difficult to accept.

The ACF-02 is a watch that attempts to exist in two different worlds. One where nature-driven design and ultra-technical engineering need to coexist in harmony. It’s a big ask and one that takes more than a little bit of unconventional thinking. Then again, as our mate Aristotle also said in a moment of exceptional clarity, “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”

I don't usually talk about prices on The Subdial but I thought it was important for this one. The WRK ACF-02 is 18 924 CHF (excluding taxes). A certified bargain if you ask me.

Learn more about the ACF-02 HERE.

Cya in the next one. x

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