Grandeur Introduce Tilt 24° Angled Tourbillon with Transparent Case

Grandeur are one of the more creative brands of the moment pushing watch design in interesting directions with models like the central tourbillon Lumillion and unusual Monocle display. For their latest creation though, they want to strip away all the frivolity to expose the raw horological mechanics at the heart of their watches. Which is why they’ve introduced the new Grandeur Tilt featuring a skeletonised tourbillon display and a completely transparent case.

Let’s start with that case. It measures 42.5mm in diameter with a thickness of 16mm, giving it plenty of presence on the wrist. However, it’s also designed to fade somewhat into the background due to its fully transparent construction. The material that has been used is Grandeur’s UltraClear 8 Glass. The term ultra clear glass refers to glass that is produced with a low iron content, which improves transparency to make the glass as clear as possible.

The 8 in its name then refers to the fact that it achieves a level 8 on the hardness scale, normal glass is around a 5.5 to 6 meaning there is a marked improvement in its durability. On top of that, there is an additional scratch resistant coating as well as 14 layers of anti-reflective coating in order to protect the watch and allow you to see through the case to the inner workings cleanly.

Most transparent cases from brands like Hublot are produced from sapphire crystal, however that skyrockets the price into the atmosphere, typically at least six figures. By finding an alternative solution, Grandeur have managed to keep the Tilt priced at four figures despite also using a tourbillon movement.

However, that’s not to say that Grandeur have abandoned sapphire as a material altogether. The coloured, translucent disk of the hour and minute dial is made from sapphire as is the primary tourbillon bridge that suspends the rotating cage at its 24° inclined angle. Those elements, along with the power reserve indicator at 4 o’clock and bezel ring are available in a choice of five colours: sapphire blue, ruby red, amethyst purple, obsidian black or emerald green.

Focussing in on the tourbillon itself, it’s a 60-second tourbillon meaning that it rotates at a rate of once per minute – so if you’re so inclined you could use it to track seconds. Obviously what’s special about this tourbillon is the fact that it’s tilted. In order to understand why it’s tilted, you need to know the basics of what a tourbillon does.

In brief, when a balance spring is held in a static orientation for a long time, gravity begins to pull on the spring and affect its accuracy. By rotating the balance spring and changing its orientation, gravity pulls on the spring for an equal amount of time in each direction, essentially cancelling out its own effect. In simple terms by tilting the tourbillon, you’re increasing the amount by which the orientation changes as it rotates so the effects of gravity are even less. In practice, you’ll probably only notice the difference if you’re tracking the accuracy in lab-like conditions but that’s true of all tourbillons.

It also gives the watch a sort of futuristic vibe that meshes well with the transparent case and heavily skeletonised architecture of the rest of the movement. The calibre is manual-winding with a 50-hour power reserve. The choice of manual winding makes a lot of sense because if you’ve gone to the trouble of having a fully see-through case, slapping a rotor onto it that obscures the mechanics of the watch defeats the purpose. They even use the same logic on the strap which is also translucent, although it’s also provided with four additional straps so you can switch up the look at your leisure.

For price, the Grandeur Tilt 24° Angled Tourbillon is £9,084 (Grandeur use live exchange rates on their online shop so the price may vary slightly over time). For a tourbillon, that’s remarkable value and throw on top the skeletonised display and transparent case and the value keeps improving. This is Grandeur putting their foot down and saying, we are serious about making haute horology more accessible. There are no asymmetric cases or unusual layouts to hide behind here, in fact, there’s not even an opaque case to hide behind.

More details at Grandeur.