![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-XL-Hand-Wind-2020-Two-Tone-W2SA0017-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-2.jpg)
Few modern watchmakers measure up to Cartier when it comes to century-old, yet evergreen, designs. We feel like we could write a book on Cartier watch design evolution — but we’ll spare you that and instead will shift focus right away to the new-for-2020 Cartier Santos-Dumont XL Hand-Wind watch collection, a range of three new watches, all with a Piaget-derived hand-wound movement, lowered prices, and now a steel variant.
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-XL-Hand-Wind-2020-WGSA0032-Gold-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-1.jpg)
The Cartier Santos has played a major role in carving the path not only for pilot’s watches, but also for men’s watches, in general. In its more than a century-long history, the Santos has been many things to many people — but perhaps most of us will remember it as the chunky (almost too chunky) Santos XL that was a star of the late 2000s and early 2010s, followed by the still rather bulky Santos 100 (reviewed here).
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-Historic-Archive-Images-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-1.jpg)
Left to right: A 1916 Cartier Santos “WCL88A16” and a 1912 Santos, “one of the very first Santos created by Cartier” according to the brand.
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-XL-Hand-Wind-2020-WSSA0032-Steel-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-1.jpg)
Great watches in their own right, they all lacked some of the delicacy of the earliest Cartier Santos watches. The Santos-Dumont collection, with that notable “-Dumont” extension to its name, marks a distinctly different take that roves in the direction of those smaller watches with so much refinement to their proportions.
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-XL-Hand-Wind-2020-WSSA0032-Steel-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-2.jpg)
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-XL-Hand-Wind-2020-Collection-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-1.jpg)
That trend continues in the Cartier Santos-Dumont XL Hand-Wind watches for 2020, which are available in three variations: 18k pink gold, two-tone with 18k pink gold and steel, and an all-steel variant. All termed “extra-large” by Cartier, they measure 46.6mm by 33.9mm and are an impressive 7.5mm-thick. That thin profile is attained through the use of an exceptionally thin, Piaget-derived Cartier 430MC caliber that measures only 2.15mm-thick.
Given that only the very latest ultra-thin movements are capable of stretching power reserve, this older (but proven) 430P/430MC caliber offers a shorter 38-hour power reserve matched to a slower 21,600bph operating frequency. In practice, that means you’ll want to be winding this beauty every single day — a gratifying chore, to be sure.
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-Large-Quartz-2020-Collection-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-1.jpg)
If you want to save at least a few thousand dollars — if neither winding your watches nor hiring a Watch Butler is a possibility for you — then you’ll be happy to learn that Cartier offers the Santos-Dumont in the “large” size with a quartz movement and six years of autonomy. Introduced last year, these “large” Santos-Dumont pieces have case dimensions of 43.5mm by 31.4mm and a thickness of 7.3mm.
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-XL-Hand-Wind-2020-WGSA0032-Gold-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-4.jpg)
Getting back to the The Cartier Santos-Dumont XL Hand-Wind collection, my only small gripe with these, as a watch-lover, is the fact that the crown is your only interaction and your only indicator of the presence of a hand-wound movement… To be fair, there’s also “mécanique” written in small fonts on the caseback. A running seconds would be as much a sacrilege as a date window on this design, but an open caseback, even with just a small aperture somewhere, revealing the bridges covered with the Cartier “C” all over, would have been a nice little touch. A running seconds window or power reserve on the back really would have been next level — but also likely would’ve entailed an increase in price. Cartier doesn’t appear to provide caseback images, so you’ll have to use your imagination to picture a solid caseback with some text on it.
![](https://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Cartier-Santos-Dumont-XL-Hand-Wind-2020-Two-Tone-W2SA0017-aBlogtoWatch-Dress-Elegant-Pilot-Vintage-1.jpg)
Pricing for the Cartier Santos-Dumont XL Hand-Wind watches is yet to be confirmed, but they should range around €4,700 for steel, a competitive €6,500 for two-tone, and €12,500 for the solid 18k pink gold version, and you can start hunting for one of these in Cartier boutiques starting in May. A design of outstanding elegance, powered by a slim mechanical movement and encapsulated in nicely executed cases. We wish all “iconic” designs showed progress like this. You can learn more about the Cartier Santos-Dumont collection on cartier.com.