Raghu Mani
24
Interesting Article on Ulysse Nardin
I was passing through Singapore airport and I picked up this watch magazine called "Revolution" (well it was more like an extra-thick annual issue). I have never seen it in the US - I suppose Signapore residents should know more about it. Anyway, there was a big feature on UN, the new Caliber 160 and their plans for the future. I mention it here because there was a lot of speculation about just this in the "2007 wish list" thread a couple of weeks ago. The article featured, among other things, some comments by Pierre Gygax on the future of Cal. 160 and UN in general. Among the things he said were
1. Eventually, they want to have all UN watches powered by in-house movements that feature their lubrication free Dual-Ulysse escapement. Of course "eventually" could be a long way off (they would not commit to any timeframe).
2. The Cal. 160 has been designed to provide enough torque to be able to "replace" the ETA 2892 movement that is used as the base movement in a lot of UN's watches. This does not necessarily mean that they will eventually rid themselves of their dependence on ETA but that seemed to be the general implication.
3. The Perpetual calendar watches will not use the Cal. 160 as the base (evidently, UN regards the movement as in-house).
4. It was also implied that the Cal. 160 will be eventually be put into "affordable" watches and that the first "complication" based on this Caliber will probably be a GMT +/- watch.
5. They were not concerned that the presence of the new escapement in a lot of cheaper watches would hurt the "exclusivity" of the Freak. However they also mentioned that additional improvements were being planned for the Freak.
Raghu