Girard Perregaux

Something about the automatic Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon you might find interesting

 

Dear enthusiasts,

the models that represent Girard-Perregaux, the brand?s heritage and dedication to fine watchmaking best are most probably those watches to bear the famous Tourbillon under Three Gold Bridges. It?s certainly hard to escape their charme and magic, such as the

ref. 99060, sceleton automatic tourbillon, classic case



ref. 99890, automatic tourbillon, Vintage45 case

The center of attraction more often is the Tourbillon, this little whirlwind made of 72 hand-finished and hand-assembled parts that weigh less than 1/3 of a gramm and ensure both an accurate performance and a mesmerizing function by so small, but that beautiful parts:





caliber GP 9600.CS (for the Vintage45 case)

Yet there are even more technical features that set the GP Tourbillons apart from others; these watches are more special than a casual view reveals at a glimpse.
It is not often noted, but they are among the very few automatic tourbillons in production and the only tourbillons to sport an integral rotor, often referred to as a "microrotor". This nomenclature does not come by surprise, as a comparison view of a conventional rotor (from a GP3300 caliber) and a microrotor reveals:


brass prototypes for machine calibration


the latest variant, microrotor with ceramic ball bearing

What the small size lacks in diameter is made up by the weight of the material; every microrotor in a GP Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon is crafted of solid Platinum and thus equals out the slightly reduced mass over the solid gold full-size rotors. And to improve the function and long-term performance, GP lately introduced ceramic ball bearings (click for our earlier coverage), which are the world?s first application for a microrotor movement at all.

So we see, there are some interesting details that are not that easily seen. And today i?d like to share a visual impression of the automatic winding train, which may show the automatic variants of the GP Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon is in fact even more complicated than one might guess:



microrotor and automatic winding unit

As you know, the rotor is hidden by the barrel wheel and nestles around the barrel in an almost hidden place.
To do so it needs very small space and the visual similarity of the automatic and the manual wind variants is most surprising - many enthusiasts failed to spot the rotor at all and wonder how such a watch might wind if there?s no easily visible central rotor.
To me this accounts for much of the fascination of the automatic tourbillons by GP do have, besides an ingenious construction made to preserve the already iconic design of this very special movement. Keeping in mind this is probably the oldest movement of current make (with the Breguet Tradition) and the construction a miniaturized version of the 1865 movement by Constant Girard-Perregaux, i find these are most special watches.
Lucky those few owners who can appreciate their beauty, their hidden and their apparent features every day!

Greetings from germany,

Peter