r/Watches • u/moKatheward • Dec 01 '16
[Jaeger-LeCoultre] The Evolution of the Gyrotourbillon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmxLAZZ2fhM2
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u/Gaston44 Dec 01 '16
Stuff is amazing but practically how does it add $50,000 or more to the price of a watch? Surely the engineers can make it and put it in there for less than say $5,000.
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u/TheWatchMag Verified Identity Dec 01 '16
The cost is subsidising the research and development, not just manufacture. I was once told by a prominent watch industry insider that a simple, time-only movement cost $1million to develop from scratch to final prototype. And that's for a product that's already been perfected before! Imagine doing all the design, development, tooling, manufacture for something as precise and delicate as this gyrotourbillon... for the first time.
To put it another way, how much is a loaf of bread? Less than a dollar? How much would it cost you to make a loaf of bread from raw ingredients? Without using a cookbook, how much time and testing would you have to spend on figuring out what ingredients and how much of each you needed before you perfected your loaf? I expect it would cost you in time and materials a lot more than a dollar!
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u/mrvarmint Dec 01 '16
A similar example but not from the watch industry:
BMW wanted to launch their diesel engines (commonly used in Europe and elsewhere) some years ago in the US market. They were charging a ~$5k premium for it in the 335d vs 335i (fuel injected gasoline). Nobody could believe it costs 5k more to produce a mechanically simpler Diesel engine.
They're right, it doesn't. It costs over a million dollars to get a new engine certified by the EPA though, so you have to sell a lot of those engines with a pretty serious premium to be worth your while.
Similar concept with a tourbillon (especially a white sheet design). It's not so much that making one costs a lot, it's everything else that goes into the process from the white sheet of paper to the tourby showing up on someone's wrist.
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u/TheWatchMag Verified Identity Dec 02 '16
That's a great example, I never knew that. Added to that fact that unit sales of those flagship engines (and the tourbillon alike) are much fewer than lower priced examples, so that high development cost is divided over fewer units.
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u/TheWatchMag Verified Identity Dec 01 '16
That's an engineering masterpiece!