The Da Vinci Tourbillon Rétrograde Chronograph is one of the flagship models in the revamped-for-2017 Da Vinci collection. The watch features a flying tourbillon, a retrograde date display, and a flyback chronograph, all powered by a self-winding in-house movement with several interesting technical features. It's also got all the aesthetic hallmarks of the new Da Vinci collection too, so let's take a closer look.
One of the more interesting aspects of the watch is the tourbillon – this is a flying tourbillon, which is fitted with a stop-seconds feature, to allow to-the-second accurate setting of the watch. It's a peculiarity of the tourbillon that the presence of the cage has historically tended to discourage watchmakers from putting a stop-seconds mechanism in tourbillon wristwatches – of course part of that had to do with the fact that until well after the Quartz Crisis you could have counted the number of tourbillon wristwatches on the fingers of one hand. The problem is that a stop-seconds complication usually works by means of a small lever that presses on the balance wheel when you pull out the crown, but such a mechanism would be blocked by the tourbillon carriage.
If you want to buy into national stereotypes, you might say it's not surprising that two of the companies that have figured out a way around this problem with a stop-seconds tourbillon are German, and in fact from both from Glashütte: Moritz Grossman and A. Lange & Söhne. Schaffhausen isn't in Germany but it's surrounded on three sides by the German border (and it's not as if Switzerland isn't also thought of as a home of obsessive devotion to precision).
The lever and escape wheel are silicon (this is said by IWC to contribute significantly to the relatively long 68-hour power reserve and, certainly, it's true that the lower mass of silicon means less energy lost at the escapement). Initially, the watch will be offered in red gold only, and on a Santoni strap.
Having had a chance to handle the watch and have it on the wrist, I'm comfortable saying it's made a very positive initial impression. It's certainly sized and styled to impress at 44mm across and 17mm thick, but the stop-seconds for the tourbillon is really technically interesting (and, though not unique any more, certainly unusual) and that, combined with the retrograde date and flyback chronograph, gives you a watch with a feel of substantive technical achievement and solid, unostentatious luxury, which is very much in line with the Da Vinci family in general, and with IWC in particular.
I just wonder a little about the name – "Rétrograde" is French, and, after all, IWC's home language is German. Rückläufig, maybe?
The IWC Da Vinci Tourbillon Rétrograde Chronograph is priced at $103,000 and is only available in red gold on launch.
For more, visit IWC online.
Movement, IWC caliber 89900 with retrograde date, flyback chronograph, and flying tourbillon with stop-seconds; hour and minute totalizers combined at 12:00. Frequency, 28,800 vph, with silicon escape wheel and lever; 68-hour power reserve. Case, 18k red gold, 44mm x 17mm; Three bar water resistance.
