News · Hublot

Hublot Returns to Gold and Rubber With the Classic Fusion Tributo

The 38 mm yellow-gold Tributo revisits Hublot’s first watch, replacing the original quartz movement with an automatic calibre.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 16 October 2026

• Hublot’s Classic Fusion Tributo Yellow Gold revisits the 1980 gold-and-rubber design in a 38 mm case with an automatic movement.
• The spare black dial, twelve-screw gold bezel and lined rubber strap retain the original contrast, while an H-shaped rotor appears through the back.
• Reference 262.VX.1130.RX.MDM lists at A$44,600 in Australia and US$30,900 before VAT in the United States, with Australian online purchase offered.

Hublot has spent decades making increasingly elaborate versions of its founding idea, but the original was surprisingly spare: precious metal against black rubber, with a bezel held by visible screws. There is room to disagree about how radical that pairing looks now, after so many brands have tried it, yet the shape still explains why the company became recognisable. On 15 October Hublot returned to that starting point with the Classic Fusion Tributo Yellow Gold 38 mm, a watch that keeps the contrast and changes the mechanics.

The 1980 silhouette grows two millimetres

The first Hublot from 1980 was a 36 mm quartz watch. The Tributo grows to 38 mm and uses a self-winding movement, which is a meaningful change beneath a deliberately familiar exterior. Hublot makes the case and bezel in polished and satin-finished 18k yellow gold, with the twelve visible bezel screws left in place. The difference between the smoother case surfaces and the brushed face of the bezel gives the gold some structure instead of letting it read as a single shiny mass.

A sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment covers a matte black dial. There is no ring of applied hour markers to compete with the broad gold hands; instead, the date sits at three and the small MDM signature at six connects the watch to the name used around Hublot's earliest years. The black face has a faint charcoal cast in Hublot's own images, closer to the surface of a dark record than a polished stone. That is a more interesting treatment than a perfectly flat black circle would have been.

Hublot rates the watch to 100 metres, more than the restrained dial might lead you to expect. That number gives the gold-and-rubber combination a practical edge, although the watch's price will probably have its owner thinking about other things around a swimming pool. The crown and case still need to do ordinary watch work, and the water-resistance figure is one reminder that the Tributo is not merely a museum piece made wearable.

Gold and rubber, seen from both sides

The black lined rubber strap is central to the design, not a substitute for a bracelet that Hublot forgot to include. Where gold bracelets can make a case feel continuous and formal, this one cuts the colour sharply at the lugs. The strap is secured by a deployant buckle combining yellow gold with black-plated steel and titanium. Hublot has also kept the exposed lug architecture and omitted its One Click strap-change system, which preserves the original's visual link between case and rubber.

Turn the watch over and the argument becomes less historical. A sapphire back shows the HUB1711 automatic movement and its open-worked H-shaped rotor, finished to continue the yellow-gold theme. The original's quartz engine did not offer this view, so the back is where the Tributo most plainly belongs to the present. The movement is not hidden behind a solid commemorative plate: its rotor is the visual proof that this revival changes more than the case size. For a watch built around a memory of 1980, it is a welcome sign that the mechanical present still has a place in the design.

I like the decision to leave the dial largely alone while allowing the back to disclose the mechanical change. A more crowded face could have advertised the conversion to automatic winding, but it would also have weakened the very simplicity the watch was meant to revisit. The larger 38 mm case will not make the same impression on every wrist as the 36 mm original, of course. Still, the two extra millimetres seem a fair exchange for a watch that has to carry this movement and remain comfortable on rubber.

The yellow-gold version is the most direct reference to Carlo Crocco's first gold-and-rubber Hublot. A white-gold Tributo is also in the new line, but its darker stone dial gives it a different character; this article and its price concern the yellow-gold reference 262.VX.1130.RX.MDM. That distinction matters with a paired launch, because the two watches share a name and case size while their dials are doing different jobs.

Classic Fusion Tributo Yellow Gold 38 mm pricing and availability

Hublot lists the yellow-gold Tributo at A$44,600 on its Australian product page and US$30,900 on its US site, the latter excluding VAT. The Australian page offers the watch for purchase. The price applies to reference 262.VX.1130.RX.MDM on the black rubber strap.

The Tributo is strongest when it accepts that the simple first idea remains its best one. Gold beside black rubber still does enough work on its own; the new movement can take its bow from the back.