Today, watches aren’t needed to tell time—at minimum, they are playthings for the well-heeled and at best, works of art. At MB&F they are often both. No one knows better than founder Max Büsser that timepieces are a sort of modern fantasy, a way of romanticizing the mechanical inventions of yesteryear. But this watchmaking house is doing everything except look backwards. Its latest, the HM12, is a $384,000 futuristic piece that would send any Marvel fanatic into a frenzy—a watch that doubles as a robot. But if you’re looking to live out your Iron Man fantasy on your wrist and your desk, think again. The creation, limited to just 12 pieces in three colorways, sold out to VIP collectors before it even debuted.

Heralded as the most limited MB&F ever, it also marks the first full collaboration between Büsser and his anointed successor Max Maertens. The young wunderkind started out as an intern at the company before rising through the ranks. While Büsser hasn’t retired from his namesake company, he has already made it known that Maertens is his heir apparent. He began work designing HM12 “The Guardian” based on an idea from Büsser to have a watch that doubles as a robot, five years ago. “I knew it would be a long process,” Maertens tells Robb Report from MB&F’s recently opened New York City showroom on Madison Avenue. “I can still remember for every single component I did—even what my mood during the day was because in every single detail, there’s thought behind it. There’s reasons why I took an angle like this or like this or why I chose exactly this spherical surface here.” Typically clad in an all black ensemble, he operates like a clean slate. He doesn’t even wear a watch because, as he says, “as long as my wrist is empty, I can think about something new.”

Forging into uncharted territory is something of a specialty of the house. Büsser’s creations are inspired by his childhood and his dreams, meaning they’ve come in the form of everything from aliens and bulldogs to an octopuses and a car engines. The HM12, however, pushes the brand’s imaginative streak to a new level. On the watch “face” there are two “eyes”: a disc for the jumping hours on the left and a disc for the minutes on the right. At 12 o’clock is a flying tourbillon that MB&F refers to as “the brain,” while a micro rotor at 6 o’clock in the shape of the brand’s battle-axe symbol represents the robot’s “mouth.” Turning the crown on the left activates a face shield—in green, blue, or purple to match the three iterations—that partially covers the visible features. This playful fourish, although useless in terms of timekeeping, requires 200 of the 646 components in the watch and two engineers had to work simultaneously to ensure the face shield and the movement operated in harmony.

Flip the watch over and you’ll find the traditional high-end finishing one would expect from a six-figure timepiece: a grain finish, known as berçage, and a rounded finish on the brass components, as well as snailing on the steel barrels. The rounded gold rotor is completed in a stunning guilloché pattern by master watchmaker, Kari Voutilainen.

But the real magic lies in the transformation. A quick-release system allows for the straps to easily come off and the mobile lugs allow the watch face to be inserted onto the robot’s head. But, of course, you want to play with your robot so MB&F articulated the wrist, elbows, and shoulders so you can move it around like a child in a playroom. There’s even a “rocket launcher” that clips into place on the robot’s arm, but also doubles as a UV flashlight to ignite the lume on various part of the robot and watch. And, because you can’t leave your toys out, there’s a little drawer at the base of the figurine that slides out to store your watch straps.

Adding to the mind-blowing zaniness of the piece? Even though it took the house five years to create the HM12, its caliber (which contains 84 hours of power reserve) will never be used again in any other MB&F creation. Business-wise, that’s practically unheard of in today’s watchmaking. That’s why they call this manufacture the M.A.D. House after all.