While the IWC Ingenieur can trace its origins as far back as 1955, the collection was revamped in a rather significant manner in the 1970s following the popularisation of stainless steel luxury sports watches. Designed by Gerald Genta himself, the new Ingenieur was a slim case much like Genta’s Royal Oak that featured an integrated bracelet. Furthermore, it even featured a bezel with four rivets, much like the Royal Oak’s exposed screws. Eventually, following a period of insufficient sales, IWC decided to launch a smaller variant of the Ingenieur, the ref. 3506, in the mid-80s. Following on from that collection came other Ingenieur variants like what we have here, the Ingenieur Perpetual Calendar Moonphase ref. 3540. With an emphasis on IWC’s elegant design language but with an abundance of luxury, the ref. 3540 utilized design touches such as an 18kt yellow gold construction to swap the Ingenieur’s tool-watch stainless steel execution with a sophistication that echoed IWC's dress watches while still remaining true to the new Ingenieur with its integrated bracelet and exposed rivet bezel. Produced from 1987 until 1992, the ref. 3540 was certainly not made en masse like other precious metal sports watches of it time, and with its white dial housing an array of perpetual calendar complications, as powered by its automatic cal. 35780 or cal. 35782 (only examples from after 1989 feature the cal. 35782), this is one timepiece that showcased exactly where IWC were heading in the future with its impressively luxurious construction and technically astute movement combining to create something truly exceptional.

While it was originally a tool watch created for engineers, the Ingenieur certainly had its fair share of luxury-coded offerings, and this exceptionally high-end 18kt yellow gold ref. 3540 definitely stands as a testament to that fact.