Advertised as the world’s smallest chronograph in the 1988 catalogue, the IWC Ingenieur Chronograph was a limited five-year-run Genta design Ingenieur line with caliber 631 by Jaeger-Le Coultre for IWC.
Now, I have made a thread about the IW3734 previously, but since then I’ve added one more to my collection. This time is an IW3733, also in two-tone, steel-18k yellow gold, but in a black as opposed to a cream-color dial.
My reaction when I first saw this watch online was that I never knew such model existed. I fell in love with it straight away, its design reflects the era’s trend of combining luxury materials with practical functionality. Its quartz movement offers precise timekeeping with reduced maintenance compared to mechanical movements. For someone who is more into the aesthetics of things, I would choose this watch over many mechanical ones out there. And for someone who has small wrists, this watch is perfectly proportioned as I’ve always liked the smaller, classical size watches.
By no means that it’s an ordinary quartz watch either. Different from many ETA-base movement you find in many quartz Ingenieur at the time, this particular watch has a mechaquartz movement that belongs to the caliber 630 family produced by JLC. A hybrid caliber combining two quartz-controlled stepping motors with a mechanically driven chronograph. What’s even more amazing, the movements are made up of 233 tiny, highly complicated, and hand-assembled individual parts.
Aesthetically, what more can I say? It’s beautiful. The 3733 in black and gold has a sportier look in comparison to the 3734. To me it gives a Daytona 6265 x Nautilus vibe. It has a rugged and a handsome look, even in such worn out condition, great for an every-day, hanging out with friends type of occasion. Whereas the 3734 has a more delicate, fancy dinner date, or special occasion vibe to it. Everything about this watch from the text, the sub dials, to the date window is well balanced.
All that said, it begs the question of why was this model not so popular at the time? One might say that its 30mm diameter would suit females' wrists more, or the idea that all great watches have to be mechanical. Ironically, I love it despite of all that. The fact that it’s so underrated made me drawn to it even more.
As the information on this model is so scarce, I became obsessed with it. Getting deeper into the Ingenieur's history, I’ve also discovered various models I didn’t know before that are based on the famous Genta design. The Ingenieur Chrono Alarm, the Ingenieur SL Perpetual Calendar, and the Ingenieur SL pocket watch just to name a few. To me they’re unsung heroes, and who knows if one day I could collect the last two configurations of the 3733 with a full steel and the 9533 with a full gold version, and if I could ever find them. All I know is that they’re somewhere out there. Only time will tell.
