Karl-Friedrich Scheufele

Co-President, Chopard & Cie SA

Chopard L.U.C 1963 Heritage: Chronograph, Regulator and Art of Case Making with Karl-Fritz Scheufele

📅 Sep 06, 2026 Revolution Watch 12 MIN 20933 VIEWS 62 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS

Wei Koh sits down with Karl-Fritz Scheufele, Chief of Staff, Craft, Digital & Experience at Chopard, for a conversation on the maison’s latest L.U.C creations and the deeper craft behind them. The discussion begins with the L.U.C 1963 Heritage Chronograph, a technically sophisticated chronograph built around a calibre with vertical clutch, flyback function, zero-reset capability and a layered movement architecture that clearly separates the base movement from the chronograph works. Wei and Karl-Fritz then look at the evolution of Chopard’s case making, including the renewed L.U.C case langua...

What Karl-Friedrich Scheufele said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Karl-Friedrich Scheufele discussed Chopard's L.U.C 1963 Heritage chronograph, noting its vertical clutch and flyback function, and shared a personal story of using the flyback on an Alpine Eagle to train his dog Bandit. He described the 2023 redesign of Chopard's cases, including soldered lugs and a more wearable fit, and mentioned the platinum Quattro as a challenge. He confirmed the Quattro movement offers 9 days of power reserve. He detailed the new Heritage Regulator with a white gold case, featuring power reserve at 12, central minutes, small seconds, date, GMT, and hours, and appreciated its cuff-friendly design. He acknowledged the GPHG competition between Ferdinand Berthoud and Chopard, calling it exciting, and noted the ANN3 project involved over 80 people from both brands. He praised the handcrafted atelier for Neso's Streamliner 3, calling the experience emotional.

Key takeaways

Chopard's 2023 case redesign introduced soldered lugs and reworked edges for better wearability.
The Heritage Regulator offers 9 days of power reserve via a quattro movement with stacked barrels.
The Heritage Regulator's white gold case is 40 mm and prioritizes legibility with multiple indications.
The ANN3 project involved over 80 people from Chopard L.U.C. and Ferdinand Berthoud.
Scheufele used the flyback function on an Alpine Eagle to time his dog's potty breaks.

Numbers and commitments

Figure	What it refers to	Type	At
9 days	Power reserve of the Quattro movement	metric	6:42
over 80 different people	Contributors to the ANN3 project	metric	11:00
40 mm	Case size of the Heritage Regulator	metric	8:33

Chapters

0:00Chronograph technical innovations
4:07Case redesign and soldered lugs
6:30Quattro power reserve and regulator
9:26GPHG competition with Berthoud
11:00ANN3 project and atelier

Questions asked in this interview

0:01Waco here in Geneva with my friend Karl-Friedrich Scheufele. How are you, sir?
1:11... guys, because when you activate a horizontal clutch, you have a parasitical effect of trying to drive the chronograph train and that sometimes affects the underlying amplitude of the base caliber, but not with a vertical clutch, okay?
5:18So, this whole idea of like basically attaching all these separate lugs to create the perfect intersection between the two was kind of a lost art form, right?
6:30So, this is a four barrels, two pairs of stack barrels for a power reserve of how much is it now?
6:47Now, what I love was in the past there was a regulator version of this watch, right?
8:55It's pretty close to the case for the Spirit of LUC, right?
9:26How do you feel about that?
10:17... took the effort to go and for the first time, I can't imagine in ages, to go back and create a split bi-metallic balance wheel, well, with its own form of thermo-compensating, and then actually COSC certified that, which was crazy, right?
11:20So, just the lead-up to it already was Herculean, all right?

Waco 0:01 ↗

Ladies and gentlemen, how are you? Waco here in Geneva with my friend Karl-Friedrich Scheufele. How are you, sir?

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 0:06 ↗

Very well. How are you?

Waco 0:08 ↗

I'm great, you know, as you know, I'm quite old. Although I'm a new dad, so it's keeping me up.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 0:14 ↗

Congratulations on that.

Waco 0:15 ↗

Thank you. It's the most incredible experience, you know, and for those of you who don't have children, may I suggest that you go out and create children immediately, because it is just the most wonderful experience.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 0:26 ↗

I heard it here first.

Waco 0:29 ↗

But one of the things I recall back in the day, specifically 2006 for the kind of 10th anniversary for LUC, was the creation of an extraordinary chronograph caliber. I kind of like to think of this chronograph caliber is like the ultimate overachiever, you know, it's one of those like it's like one of those students that graduates from high school at 15 years old and plays the violin like at a concert level, but also is like astrophysicist and all these different things.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 0:59 ↗

Takes all the boxes.

Waco 1:00 ↗

Correct. So, let's go through the list of the incredible technical innovations related to this chronograph.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 1:08 ↗

So, where should we start? Vertical clutch?

Waco 1:11 ↗

Vertical clutch. So, vertical clutch is important, guys, because when you activate a horizontal clutch, you have a parasitical effect of trying to drive the chronograph train and that sometimes affects the underlying amplitude of the base caliber, but not with a vertical clutch, okay?

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 1:27 ↗

Flyback function?

Waco 1:28 ↗

Dude, one of my favorites. All right, so you hit the reset button and every hand will jump back to zero and restart immediately.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 1:37 ↗

It's such a fun function to play with.

Waco 1:39 ↗

Yeah. And an important feature when setting your chronograph is the fact that you're able to set it precisely where you want it to be. So, there's a zero set function as well that allows you to set your chronometer precisely and restart it at the exact time you want it to. And what's interesting as well is the architecture of the movement because usually you would start by building a manual wound chronograph first and then go for the automatic, but this caliber is based on the automatic version actually. And it gives it such a distinct, I find, depth in the architecture.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 2:19 ↗

Yeah.

Waco 2:21 ↗

And the choice we did was really to let everything open up as much as possible, not to hide anything with any bridges so you can really see that kind of intricate architecture of the movement.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 2:36 ↗

But I love the fact that you've done like the two different trains or the bridges related to the two trains in two different colors, right? So you've got the base caliber which has this lovely sort of three and yellow gold finishing to it. And then that which is related to the chronograph is in this more traditional sort of rhodium finish.

Waco 2:58 ↗

Yeah.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 2:59 ↗

And it's really cool because you understand immediately the two different levels that are happening here. We've got the column wheel over here. So when we activate the chronograph you can see that turning. And that activates the vertical clutch. So the cool thing with the vertical clutch is basically the clutch wheel is always spinning. When you drop it on top of the chronograph seconds wheel, they start moving together. But as we explained, there's no drop in amplitude for the balance wheel which is super important. All right. And then the flyback function so we can show you here. The chronograph is running. Or we're going to hit this button. So it was really funny because I actually used one of your chronographs to train my dog Bandit.

Waco 3:39 ↗

Yeah, I remember that story.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 3:42 ↗

Because like she needed to do like strict three-hour intervals between her pee breaks. This is to train Bandit to like learn how to pee on the grass outside. So I would bring her down and as soon as she pee, I give her a treat and then I hit my flyback function and the chronograph would reset and then 3 hours later I know I would bring her down.

Waco 4:00 ↗

That was on the Alpine Eagle.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 4:01 ↗

Yeah, that was on the Alpine Eagle version of that. Yeah, exactly. It's so cool.

Waco 4:07 ↗

Now, let's talk a little bit about the design of the watch as well because you guys make some very sophisticated cases with, you know, you kind of brought back this art form of soldered lugs as well. Talk to me about that.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 4:19 ↗

Well, we like making our lives a bit more difficult. And in 2023, at the end of 2023, we kind of completely redesigned the aesthetics of all our cases.

Waco 4:32 ↗

Right.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 4:32 ↗

Starting with the perpetual calendar and the Quattro. And the idea was to not only rework the cases and have a more traditional finishing on the side of the case, but also on the soldering of the lugs. The idea was also how can we make the watches more wearable? Because some of our calibers are highly technical but on the bigger side.

Waco 4:55 ↗

Got it.

Karl-friedrich Scheufele 4:55 ↗

And so you want a watch to really kind of sit nicely on your wrist. And that can be achieved through reworking the edges completely with nice brushing, reworking the lugs completely, new shapes and soldering them on just gives that extra kind of romance to the whole case making, which is something we master in house and something we want to be able to showcase as well.

31 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Scheufele, K. (2026, September 6). Chopard L.U.C 1963 Heritage: Chronograph, Regulator and Art of Case Making with Karl-Fritz Scheufele [Interview transcript]. Revolution Watch. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1344525/

MLA

Karl-Friedrich Scheufele. "Chopard L.U.C 1963 Heritage: Chronograph, Regulator and Art of Case Making with Karl-Fritz Scheufele." Revolution Watch, 6 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1344525/.

BibTeX

@misc{scheufele2026_1344525,
  author       = {Karl-Friedrich Scheufele},
  title        = {Chopard L.U.C 1963 Heritage: Chronograph, Regulator and Art of Case Making with Karl-Fritz Scheufele},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Revolution Watch. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {sep},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1344525/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (2)

“This new Heritage Regulator is powered by our quattro movement, as you say, two double barrels, stack barrel giving us 9 days of power reserve, which for so many indications is of course something very comfortable to have. You have your power reserve at 12:00, which allows you to tell how loaded up your barrels are. Then you have your minute indicator in the very center to give you that precise mi”

▶ 7:23

“Spending time in that workshop was definitely one of the more special moments of these last years for me. Seeing how they were kind of re-teaching themselves to learn these machines completely from scratch, and then making pieces at that level on completely mechanical machines without any digital assistance. I mean, it's for someone that loves watches, it's something you get pretty emotional about”

▶ 11:54

Mentioned in this interview

Alpine Eagle: Chopard watch model used for training his dog

Quattro: Chopard movement with 9-day power reserve

Ferdinand Berthoud: Brand competing at GPHG and part of ANN3 project

Max Büsser: Wears a Chopard watch and contacted his father for it

Neso: Brand with an atelier for Streamliner 3

Bandit: His dog trained with flyback function

Earlier, on the same topics

“Without the work we did at the manufacture, without everything my father put in place 30 years ago, we wouldn't be able to power an Alpine Eagle with such a thin, beautiful movement finished to the level of the Geneva Seal. So, I mean, if we're here today showing these watches, it's also thanks to t”

Apr 15, 2026 at 7:24 →

“The proceeds of the auction will go almost entirely to projects of teaching young people watchmaking skills and our responsibility and I consider it my responsibility to perpetuate the craftsmanship that we enjoy today and that we will need tomorrow if we want to continue making watches the way we c”

Sep 10, 2025 at 21:56 →

“I really sensed that in order to be recognized, in order to play an important role in the watchmaking field, you had to create your own movements. And this was not something that was really acknowledged at that time. I think we were quite early and I convinced my family to follow me on this project.”

Oct 22, 2025 at 4:28 →

“We started a collaboration with the Jima watchmaking school in 2004 and in 2010 we actually finished reconstructing the Echoli movement for the Geneva watchmaking school which subsequently they've been using for all their students. You know, every student at the end of four years will walk away with”

Mar 31, 2025 at 9:30 →

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About Karl-Friedrich Scheufele

Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, co-president of Chopard and president of Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud, discussed the value of family ownership in the watch and jewelry industry in an October 2026 interview with RABAT. He stated that family-run companies benefit from long-term planning and personal relationships, and he cited the L.U.C Grand Strike as an example of an exceptional creation. He also noted that the development of the "Gonri" watch involved filing at least 10 patents and took 11,000 hours, with only one or two pieces produced annually. In September 2026 interviews with Wei Koh, Scheufele discussed Ferdinand Berthoud's "no compromise" philosophy, stating that production cannot be deliberately increased without risking quality. He described the rediscovery of traditional techniques, such as making a biometallic balance wheel without digital equipment or CNC machines, as a process of trial and error. He also recounted giving up his own allocation of an FB3 watch so an 85-year-old collector could receive his sooner. Regarding Chopard's L.U.C 1963 Heritage collection, he described the 9-day power reserve of the Quattro movement and the craftsmanship involved in case making, including soldering lugs, which he said required re-teaching the team a lost art form.

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