Glashütte Original

Modernahab
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And now for something completely different...

The Glashütte Original PanoRetoGraph: A Review

Some watches appeal because their design captures our fancy, then holds it. Others as examples of exquisite craftsmanship, for their clever engineering, for outstanding durability, for their historic significance or heritage, or as mementos. But every now and then, we come across an outlier, a watch that does something few, if any others do, and it captivates us through its uniqueness, regardless of appearances, history, or craft. (Not that any of these are necessarily absent, but simply secondary.) One such watch for me is an odd duck product from the early days of this century: the Glashütte Original PanoRetroGraph, Ref. #60-01-01-01-06 (platinum) and 60-01-02-02-06 (white gold). While Watch Commission shared a beautifully illustrated post on the platinum PanoRetroGraph here in July of 2025, my intent is to dive a little deeper into the function, history, and aesthetics of this most unusual timepiece.

First released as a limited edition of 50 pieces in platinum and 150 pieces in white gold in 2000, the PanoRetroGraph was, according to the company’s own online history (link), a watershed in the evolution of Glashütte Original (GO) as a manufacture. It was, at the time, among the most complicated watches in the GO catalog, and apparently remained in limited serial production in rose gold and a number of dial variations until about 2004. Production of the PanoRetroGraph coincided with the absorption of GO into the Swatch Group and its modern definition as a brand following the dissolution of the East German GUB collective and reestablishment of the Saxon mechanical watch industry in a reunified Germany.

GO was purchased by the Swatch Group under Hayek the year the PanoRetroGraph was released, and it’s probably fair to say that at the time, the brand was still very much feeling out its identity. Nowadays, GO seems to capitalize on its Cold War legacy with period-inspired lines like the Sixties, Seventies, and SeaQ, but before the initial success of the Senator Sixties (incidentally, my first GO) their offerings looked rather different. Looking at the GO catalogs from the early 2000s, I notice many shaped watches under the 1845 Karee (with shaped, hand-wound calibers) and Karee (mostly round automatic calibers) collections, and what seems to me a comparatively greater proportion of ambitious complications, including tourbillons, flying tourbillons, and perpetual calendars, both automatic and hand-wound, than appeared between 2010 and 2022.

Considered in concert with the Pano line’s much commented-upon similarity in dial layout to the Lange 1 and with promotional copy of the time touting GO as “comprising the pinnacle of the (Swatch Group) brand pyramid”* I can imagine the deliberate positioning of GO as the Swatch Group’s answer to A. Lange & Sohne. Lange had impressed with the Datograph in the 1990s, and GO followed with its own in-house, hand-wound, integrated column wheel flyback chronograph with large date in the form of the PanoRetroGraph.

Yet the nature of the PanoRetroGraph’s caliber 60 gives the lie to GO as merely Swatch Group’s Lange wannabe. That’s because the caliber 60 is far more than a flyback chronograph. Given the name and the arc-shaped chrono minutes register, one might mistakenly presume the PanoRetroGraph was equipped with a retrograde minute counter, à la the 1996 Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Chroographe Rétrograde. In fact, it is noting of the sort.

The chrono minutes on the ChronoRetroGraph are actually indicated by three varied length hands sweeping over three concentric arced minute tracks, a display akin to several Daniel Roth references of the same period. No, the “Retro” in PanoRetroGraph refers to caliber 60s capacity to literally run backwards, counting down user-set intervals up to 30 minutes and emitting a chiming signal upon completion. I’m not aware of any other modern wristwatch before or since that combines a flyback chronograph with something akin to a kitchen timer.

On top of its novel complication, the PanoRetroGraph exhibits many features that I would describe as quirky. To begin with, the positions of the chronograph buttons are the inverse of the typical arrangement. The stop/start button is located at 4 o’clock on the case band, while the flyback/reset button is at 2 o’clock. Perhaps wisely, GO chose to label the buttons on the periphery of the dial. On every other GO watch incorporating the Panorama Date that I’ve seen or owned, the date is set with a recessed pusher on the case band. On the PanoRetroGraph, however, the quick-set date adjusted by turning the crown counterclockwise in the partially extended position.  

At 9 o’clock on the case band, one finds a large pusher labeled “Rückzähler” (literal translation “back-counter”, or, more colloquially, “countdown”). This is where things get fun. Pulling the crown to the partially extended position and turning it clockwise causes the chronograph minutes hands to move backwards, starting at 30 minutes. With the crown returned to the default position and the chronograph minutes set to any desired interval, pressing the button at 9 o’clock sets the chronograph seconds and minutes running backwards (counterclockwise)! I experience a flash of delight every time I see the chronograph seconds moving in reverse as the countdown starts.

Now, of course, a timer is no use unless it signals when the time is up, and that the PanoRetroGraph does – with the chime of a cathedral gong, no less! That’s right – well before Ulysse Nardin introduced an alarm watch with a cathedral gong in the Sonata Cathedral, GO was there with its crystal clear chime in this timer mechanism. The signal may not be loud, but it is beautifully pure and musical, especially in comparison with the kind of buzz emitted by most alarm watches.

Today, the PanoRetroGraph seems as quirky in appearance as in its function. This is largely because it is, aesthetically, so very much a creature of its time. (Terrible pun!) At 39.4 mm, the case diameter is in line with the current drift toward more moderately sized watches, but the height of 13.2 mm seems proportionally quite tall on the wrist. GO listed the caliber 60’s thickness at 7.2 mm, but unless that does not include the gong (which does sit above the plane of the bridges), it doesn’t account for the thickness of the case. The impression of thickness is reinforced by the flat, brushed-finish case band, even with the chronograph and timer buttons interrupting. The stepped bezel is also quite thick, though articulated with a polished inner segment that slopes upward to the crystal. Lugs are short and downward sloping, and the generously proportioned crown is easily grasped. Overall, the case reads as solid, simple, and utilitarian, which may accord with Saxon watchmaking tradition, even if rather incongruent with the watch’s mechanical sophistication.

As to the dial layout, a subdial for the hours, minutes, and chronograph seconds occupies the space between 11 o’clock and 8 o’clock, with an intersecting subdial at its 6 o’clock position for the running seconds. The distinctive GO concentric wheel “Panorama Date” occupies a window at 4 o’clock on the dial, while the arched window for the chrono minutes stretches between 1 o’clock and 3 o’clock. The platinum edition’s dial is decorated with an elaborate mix of guilloché or (more likely) stamped patterns, which strike me as out of synch with the hefty-looking case. More convincing to my eye is the far simpler matte silver finish used on the dial of the while gold version, accented by recessed, radially brushed chapter rings on the subdials and a similarly recessed and finished peripheral ring bearing the labels for the chronograph and countdown functions. The beveled window for the Panorama Date is very deep, suggesting that the dial is responsible for some of the case’s considerable thickness.

Lance-shaped hour and minute hands are executed in polished white metal, while the stick hand for the chronograph seconds bears the admittedly lumpen GO logo as counterweight. Polished applied rectangular indices denote the hours, with the minutes track printed in black. The three graduated chrono minute hands are sword-shaped and tipped in red for enhanced legibility, while running seconds are indicated by a simple stick hand with a circular counterweight. For all its relative complexity, the dial still manages to read as utilitarian, as opposed to overtly luxurious.

At first glance, my response to the PanoRetroGraph’s overall design was “dated.” That may be true, and your appreciation may depend upon your interest in turn of the 21^st century design cues. But as I live with the watch, with its peculiar stylistic juxtaposition of bluntness and complexity, what comes to mind more often is “steampunk.” Especially in the plainer dial and white gold garb. My primary criticism is that the hand set, especially the hour and minutes hands, are a bit crudely executed and flat looking compared to those on contemporary GO watches – more parts kit than in-house products in appearance, whatever their actual source.

Nothing crude, however, about the caliber 60 as visible through the exhibition case back. While not by any means finished to the standards of the neighboring A. Lange & Sohne, caliber 60 still offers plenty to look at, and frankly exceeds many a current GO movement in the complexity of its decoration (and mechanics). The movement is a manual wind integrated column wheel chronograph with lateral clutch, 32.2 mm in diameter and running at 28,800 vph, with a 42 hour power reserve. The balance wheel is weighted with 18 gold screws and uses a flat hairspring. A swan neck fine adjustment is visible atop the hand engraved balance cock.

Visible steel parts bear beveled and polished edges and bridges are decorated with narrow Glashütte ribbing. Most of the visible blued screws are countersunk and four conspicuous jewels are set in screw-mounted gold chatons. The small portions of the base plate visible through the wheels and bridges are decorated with perlage. GO’s specs claim that the winding wheels bear double sunburst finishing, but I can’t see them through the exhibition case back. GO must have been proud of this movement indeed, as they continued to publish and illustrate it in the Wristwatch Annual more than a decade after the PanoRetroGraph ceased production. As I contemplate this movement, it occurs to me that GO might do well to revive it, housed perhaps in the current Pano case and with one of their distinctive galvanized dial treatments. Are you listening out there in Glashütte?

Meanwhile, the PanoRetroGraph stands alongside a few watches in my collection, including the Platinum LE Ulysse Nardin Ulysse 1 and the Roger Dubuis Sympathie S34, as a true neo-vintage period piece: something that would have been made only around the turn of the current century and whose like is probably not to be seen again.

Please feel free to chime in with any corrections! I also welcome anyone with sufficient watchmaking moxie to add on with an account as to how GO caliber 60 manages its backwards-running chronograph trick. Thanks for looking!

* Wristwatch Annual 2002, Ed. Peter Braun; New York, Abbeville Press, 2001