A lot has already been written about how the M.A.D.1 Red watch came about, and the relationship to Max Busser and MB&F so I won’t rehash it here. Suffice to say, I was one of the people who emailed MAD Galleries when the original M.A.D.1 Blue was released, to express interest in purchasing one if they every became available to the wider public. I promptly forgot the watch existed, until March 2022 when I received an email one evening to purchase one prior to the lottery. Of course I jumped at the chance to own a weird watch at what many see to be a bargain price. After a 4 month wait, the M.A.D.1 Red arrived in July 2022. It comes in fairly basic foam packaging, along with a small UV torch to charge the large amount of lume.

Onto the watch itself, of course the most well known feature is the free spinning, tri-spoked rotor mounted where the dial normally is located. This titanium and tungsten creation spins wildly with even the slightest amount of movement due to the uni-directional winding Miyota movement. It really is something to behold in person, and the spinning rotor always catches my eye.

While the rotor is the main attraction of the M.A.D.1 Red, I personally found the case itself to be more interesting. It is reminiscent of a glass bowl, with the polished bezel sitting on the upper rim of this bowl, supporting the red movement holder and front sapphire glass. Below the glass bowl is an X shaped cradle, attached somehow to the mineral glass, which also contains the very strange shaped lugs. I’ve got no idea how this is all constructed, or how it will ever be servicable, but it certainly is uniqe compared to every other watch anywhere near this price.

The other thing I’ve really grown to like is reading the time between the lugs. It feels quite natural, and even though the minutes are only shown in 5 minute increments, it is quite easy to read to within the nearest minute at a quick glance. I’ve actually started to look at other diver style watches with the time displayed this way as a result of owning the M.A.D.1 Red.

There are of course some downsides. The undecorated basic movement being one of them. Personally it is not a concern of mine, as I purchase watches based on the overall design, rather than the individual details. So the movement decoration, or lack thereof, is only a small part of the overall package. There is also no getting around the fact this is a thick watch, 18mm in total. Again, not an issue for myself as I don’t wear this every day. Probably the most annoying issue I’ve found is the thick strap and deployant. They’re not bad quality, I just personally prefer a buckle over a deployant.

Overall the M.A.D.1 Red is a unique watch at a very attractive price point. Obviously they’re hard to get hold of, but I applaud MAD Editions for trying out the lottery system to allocate watches, rather than the drop method. I certainly wouldn’t pay some of the crazy prices asked on the grey market for these watches, especially when another batch is due to be released in eary 2023, hopefully in another colour combination.