When in 2016 Chopard Manufacture celebrated its 20th anniversary, Chopard promised a watch worthy of such a landmark. True to its word, in mid-November it unveiled the L.U.C Full Strike, an exploit that came in the nick of time, considering the six years it took to develop this 20-piece (naturally) limited edition. Chopard intended this to be no ordinary minute repeater, and so rather than using metal gongs to sound the hours, quarters and minutes, they are machined from the same block of sapphire crystal as the bezel to produce a single, homogenous whole. This explains the remarkable quality of the chimes. This patented world-first is joined by a trio of ingenious security devices which protect the movement against mishandling, a weak point of this complication. Twin barrels provide 60 hours of power reserve and sufficient energy to chime the longest sequence twelve times. As well as having COSC certification, the L.U.C 08.01-L movement is hallmarked Poinçon de Genève. It took 17,000 hours to develop.