“Must. Resist. Making. Aston Martin. And. James Bond. Jokes.”
Okay, okay, I won’t. This is, after all, a professional piece of horological news. So, here’s a little bit of context for all of us to begin with, alright? Earlier this year, Girard-Perregaux (which by the way, is one of the oldest Swiss brands around) and Aston Martin formalized their partnership but right up till this point, the only concrete indication of that relationship was placement of the former’s brand on the latter’s Formula One machines.
Did you catch it? No? Nvm, moving on…
Fast forward several months later and we have this. The Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges – Aston Martin Edition. A bit of a mouthful doesn’t even begin to cover it.
“So, what’s the big draw here?”
For starters, let’s begin with the additional strap that comes with the Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying (inhale) Bridges – Aston Martin Edition. While a regular alligator leather strap is standard, the watch also comes with a black calf leather unit that features a silver stripe running down the middle of it.
What’s the silver line all about, you ask? It’s an industry first and it goes by the name of ‘Rubber Alloy’. What it is, is basically a rubber insert in the middle of the leather strap. However, white gold has been injected into its structure, effectively creating a rubberised white gold insert.
As for the rest of the watch, fans of Girard-Perregaux will be all too familiar with its Flying Bridges tourbillon. More so if you’re a fan of the Neo Tourbillon with Three Bridges as this timepiece is more or less based on that particular model. The most noticeable visual difference lies in the (more) skeletonised movement this time round thanks to the removal of the base plate.
Here, the watch features a 44 mm by 15.52 mm Grade 5 titanium case with DLC (diamond-like carbon) coating. The same treatment and material forms the movement bridges within too. The box sapphire crystal (same on the rear of the watch) is mostly to blame for the thickness but it’s quintessential here. By adopting such a crystal layout, GP is able to stack vertical hour markers that do not obscure the view of the entire movement. Also, each marker contains SuperLuminova blocks.
“What about the movement within?”
The Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges – Aston Martin Edition (GPTwTFBAME) is powered by an (surprise, surprise) in-house automatic movement. The 27-jeweled GP09400-1683 calibre beats at a rate of 3 Hz and boasts a power reserve figure of 60 hours. Water resistance is rated ‘Are-you-crazy-why-are-you-even-thinking-about-this.’
30 m, alright? It’s 30 m of water resistance.
The watch is technically a three-hander, by the way. You can clearly see the hour and minute hands (fashioned out of gold with SuperLuminova application) while the tiny blue hand over the tourbillon on the bottom bridge indicates the running seconds.
“So… three bridges, you say?”
Yes, let’s go from top to bottom, alright? The first bridge at the top of the dial covers the barrel. Beneath the barrel, lies a micro rotor made out of 18k white gold. While it’s a tad hard to spot, catch it at the right angle (and in the dark) and you’ll be able to make out the ‘Aston Martin’ badging engraved on the vertical place of said micro rotor. Turn off the lights and the words come to life thanks to tasteful applications of SuperLuminova within the engraved badge.
Moving on, the second bridge supports the hands and the gear train while the final bridge is home to the star of this watch – the one-minute, “lyre” shaped tourbillon. The tourbillon is made up of 79 components and weighs only 0.25 g.
“Fantastic. I’ll have two!”
Well, in that case you better hurry, my friend. The Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges – Aston Martin Edition will be produced in a limited run of only 18 pieces worldwide. As for the price? That’ll cost you $146,000 (RM602,688).
