Ultra-luxury Jacob & Co. Bugatti Tourbillon Sapphire Crystal timepiece: 6 key features explained in photos, videos

Jacob & Co. and Bugatti Unveil Sapphire Timepiece

Jacob & Co. and Bugatti Automobiles have jointly introduced the Bugatti Tourbillon Sapphire Crystal, an ultra-luxury watch inspired by Bugatti's Tourbillon hyper sports car. The timepiece pairs a fully transparent sapphire crystal case with a complex mechanical movement, and the companies describe it as an extraordinary creation that pushes watchmaking to a new level. Jacob Arabo, Founder and Chairman of Jacob & Co., said in the announcement that he lives to push watchmaking to levels no one had dreamed about, and that Bugatti operates on the same principle of exceeding perceived limits.

What The Watch Contains

The watch is built around Caliber JCAM55, a movement whose complications are designed to resemble and function like Bugatti's V16 engine. Its caseback, caseband and upper bezel are carved from solid transparent sapphire blocks, requiring crystal of near-perfect purity. Cutting, shaping, boring and polishing these components involves specialised tooling and speeds, with more than 800 hours of machining. A single large sapphire block houses the V16 engine automaton, drilled with 16 cylinders containing titanium pistons driven by a single-axis crankshaft, described as one of the longest and most delicate watch parts ever made. When activated, the crankshaft spins, the pistons move and the sequence runs for 20 seconds, connected to 16 exhaust manifolds.

Other features include a 30-second flying tourbillon, twice as fast as the common one-minute period, held only by its base with no upper bridge. The hour and minute hands are retrograde, sweeping a 270-degree arc before jumping back to zero, and the hour hand jumps forward every 60 minutes. The power reserve display shows the automaton can run 20 consecutive animation sequences on one full wind, while the movement's overall 48-hour reserve is shown by a larger red hand in the same subdial. The companies say ten design elements are drawn directly from Bugatti ca…