The novel timepiece - inspired by the car engine - comes to us thanks to the inventive mind of the Bosnian-born Swiss clock and watchmaker.

“They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that is case, the watch and clock-making industry must be the most charming in the world.”

Those are the words of Miki Eleta, a Bosnian-born clockmaker cum watchmaker that has made a real name for himself in Switzerland. Bosnians are widely known for their dry sense of humour, and that quote places Miki in that camp as well.

But this man has more than a sense of humour. He has actively looked to innovate and to avoid imitation, and that started when he left his native Bosnia-Herzegovina for Switzerland in 1973, as many do for a better life.

In Switzerland he made steady progress, starting as a metal-worker and eventually moving into clockmaking in 2000. To date he has already made some truly impressive clocks and kinetic sculptures – all from scratch and by hand – but we’re here to talk about his emerging watchmaking skills.

Seeing too many similar products on offer in the watch industry, Miki took it upon himself to develop something revolutionary. The end result is the Timeburner timepiece, a nostalgic tribute to the earliest internal combustion engines.

Miki’s passion for mechanics started back when he was a teenager in then Yugoslavia. His father was a train driver, who allowed his son to drive a fully loaded cargo train across the Bosnian mountainous landscape at the age of only 16. Don’t you miss the good old days?

The noise of the engine, the smell of the smoke and the fact that he had tamed the mechanical beast made an everlasting impression on the young man. His love for mechanics has since translated to his sculptures and clocks, and now finally to wristwatches.

The Timeburner is essentially a metaphor for the internal combustion engine. Just like an engine transforms chemical energy (petrol) into mechanical energy (movement), this timepiece converts the owner’s ignition and winding of the spark plug (crown) into mechanical movement.

All that drives a piston along a non-linear time scale, and a unique feature of this watch is that the piston replaces the traditional watch hands to tell the time.

The power comes from a modified Unitas 6497-1 manual winding movement that revs at 2,5 Hz and delivers approximately 46 hours of gas in the tank. Each is fitted inside a 48mm wide titanium case that has been bead blasted, and is customizable with an engraving “license plate” in stainless steel that is uniquely numbered.

The impressive timepiece – which was realized in collaboration with Marc Jenni - is available in three models, the Silverlight ME1, Chrome Rider ME2, and the All-Black ME3. If you ask me, you can’t go wrong with either one.