Liberum’s sophomore watch, the RE-XHAUST, is a collaboration with Italian high-performance exhaust manufacturer Termignoni. The RE-XHAUST is designed and made in Italy, with a case crafted from 100% recycled steel taken from offcuts of Termignoni’s exhausts. Incredibly, no fossil fuels are used in the process as the steel from the exhausts is melted entirely in state of the art solar-powered furnaces. The end result is a watch that takes upcycling to a new level and has been manufactured with a much lower net carbon footprint.
Overview Of The RE-XHAUST Collection And Liberum Brand
Founded in 2021 by Davide Di Mauro, Italian brand Liberum is on a mission to make watches that minimise any negative effect on the environment.
Davide explains that the brand name and its debut watch collection was inspired by his young son Mattia Libero, who Davide caught ‘colouring-in’ a watch he found inside a drawer. This creative play sparked an idea in Davide, and led to the creation of the DMD001, an affordable modular watch with interchangeable outer cases made of thermos plastic elastomer and rubber straps giving wearers a choice of colours. Fittingly, the Liberum name itself also evolved from part of Mattia Libero’s name into Latin form and broadly means ‘free’.
The new RE-XHAUST collection forgoes the interchangeable aspect and ultra-affordability factor in favour of a racing-inspired, time-plus-date watch that uses eco-friendly stainless steel at its core. Made in collaboration with Italian high-performance exhaust manufacturer, Termignoni (hence the name), the RE-XHAUST is powered by a Miyota 9015 automatic movement and comes fitted as standard with a fabric strap, but a stainless steel bracelet is available for an extra €50. Two dial colours (yellow or black) will be available initially, each packaged in a handy dual-branded, leather-look travel case, and the watch comes with a two-year warranty. The RE-XHAUST will be available to pre-order directly via the brand’s website OR via Kickstarter on 20 May 2026. The launch price is €550 (approx. £430/$650USD), but the price increases to €700 once the pre-order window ends on 9 June. Watches are expected to be delivered to customers from October 2026.
The Case And Wearing Experience
The RE-XHAUST has a 38mm case diameter, with a 46mm lug-to-lug and a quoted thickness of 9.8mm, although I measure 10.1mm including the flat sapphire crystal, which has an anti-reflective coating applied to the inner. The watch weighs 61 grammes on the fabric strap. The 316L stainless steel case is made from 1.4441 medical-grade solar steel melted using raw material from Termignoni’s exhausts, which are usually found in high-performance race and MotoGP bikes, as well as some consumer motorbikes.
The slab-sided case design is simple and the execution is entirely brushed. The case sides are horizontally brushed, the bezel and tops of lugs feature circular brushing, and there is vertical brushing between the lugs. There is minimal downturn to the lugs, but despite this the watch conforms very well to the wrist, thanks to the slim profile and is comfortable because of the lightness and compact wrist span. A simple, angled bezel has slim vertical sides. The screw-down 6mm crown is branded with the Liberum ‘L’ and has simple knurling. The crown is positive and its setting and lock-down, although to wind you get the typical, slightly rough winding feel common to most watches using Miyota movements. The caseback is also screw down and features a heavily textured centre section with embossed dual branding and specifications. Water resistance is 100 metres.
The included strap is an off-the-shelf Delugs branded Delcro, a simple, lightweight elasticised fabric strap with a hook and loop fastening allowing for infinite adjustment and the perfect fit whatever your wrist size. It’s the first time I’ve tried one of these straps and I have to say, it’s very comfortable and great if you want to easily share your watch with someone of different wrist size.
A stainless steel three-link bracelet with twin-trigger fold-over clasp, is available for an additional €50 at time of purchase. It tapers from 20mm down to 18mm, has quick-release spring bars and removeable links are secured by single-sided screws making resizing easy. Whilst the clasp doesn’t have on-the-fly adjustment, it will be easy to get a good fit as there are five micro-adjust holes. The bracelet has short individual links and female end-links, so articulation is fantastic, which helps the watch conform to the wrist well. Removeable links are secured by single-side screws, so resizing is also a doddle. However, the overall level of finishing could be better and there were some sharp edges, particularly around the clasp.
The Dial And Handset
The dial is where things get interesting from a design perspective. The dial is transparent and crafted from a grey smoked sapphire crystal with fume effect. This in turn is of course protected further by the main sapphire crystal which has an anti-reflective coating applied to the inside. All the dial markings are printed in white directly onto the smoked sapphire. A racing-style staggered minute track sits at the outer edge and leans into the racing theme implied by the partnership with Termignoni. Intersecting this are short strips of BGW9 luminescent paint placed at five-second intervals.
Inwards of the seconds track, thickly-printed BGW9 lume is used for large Arabic numerals found at the 6, 9 and 12-hour markers, whilst simple rectangular lume batons mark each hour between. And in a clever nod to the industrial nature of Liberum’s collaboration, at the centre of the dial is a checkerplate design that appears to be engraved into the hour wheel guard / main top plate of the movement, mimicking the slip-resistant aluminium found on racing pits and garage floors throughout the world. Parts of the wheel train, screws and date disk are also visible beneath the layered and semi-transparent dial.
The hour and minute hands are simple silver batons which are brushed down the centre, have squared off ends and polished, bevelled sides. The hands are also filled with generous strips of BGW9 luminescent compound for improved legibility when the sun goes down. A red seconds hand completes the handset and compliments the red date indicator. The strength of the BGW9 on the dial is very good, but not class-leading.
A black-on-white, framed, triple date window is cut out of the dial at the three o’clock position flanked by a shortened hour marker and a red triangle indicating today’s date. The brand name is printed in white at the traditional 12 o’clock position, with ‘RE-XHAUST’ and ‘AUTOMATIC’ printed below the pinion at 6 o’clock. ‘Made in Italy’ is printed below the 6 o’clock hour marker. A nice but subtle touch is the three colours from the Italian flag right at the base of the dial beneath the seconds track.
Overall, the dial design is very attractive and well-balanced, with a sporty and quite masculine look. However, there is room for improvement here in terms of standard of finishing. For example, the hour indices are quite scrappy looking and appear to be thickly applied lume laid over the top of ‘placeholders’ / silver backing that is applied directly onto the dial. I also feel like there was a missed opportunity to inject more character into the handset by way of a more unique design. As it stands, they are a bit uninspired for a watch designed to evoke racing / motorsports.
The Movement
The RE-EXHAUST is fitted with the Miyota 9015 movement, a premium Japanese automatic movement from Citizen. It’s probably my favourite of the affordable movement options and can’t be bettered for the price. It’s extremely reliable, cheap to service, well put-together and reasonably accurate (within -10/+30 seconds per day). The 24-jewel movement features a Parashock anti-shock system, a 42-hour power reserve and is ‘hackable’, allowing you to set the time precisely. You can also hand wind the movement. The beat rate is 28,800bph/4Hz giving the seconds hand a smooth sweep. The only slight downside to this workhorse movement is that the rotor is unidirectional, meaning that the rotor can be a bit noisy and you can sometimes feel the rotor movement on your wrist.
Final Thoughts On The Liberum RE-XHAUST
The Liberum RE-EXHAUST is an interesting and fairly-priced watch created with an admirable environmentally conscious aim. The mid-size case and comfort factor gives it wide appeal, although it will have the strongest pull for watch enthusiasts who either connect with the brand’s eco-credentials and/or have an interest in motorbikes, MotoGP or Liberum’s choice of collaborative partner. The RE-XHAUST has got a reliable and accurate Japanese movement and there are some unique design touches that bring quite a graphical style, such as the layered dial with checkerplate feature, racing-inspired minute track, red accents and triple date. However, there are areas for improvement in terms of execution, such as the hour indices, untidy lume application and bracelet finishing. Also, I can’t help thinking that, given the concept behind the watch, it might have been better suited to being a chronograph. Either that, or Liberum could have gone even harder on the motorsports theme to make the RE-XHAUST even more distinctive. For example, they could have designed some custom-shaped hands or featured extruded sections on the case to bring more of a unique ‘technical/engineered’ look. What do you think of the RE-EXHAUST? Please let us know in the comments section below…
