When a brand unveils a new haute horological creation, it’s not unusual to hear about multi-year development processes. The development of the L.U.C Grand Strike, Chopard’s most complicated watch ever, traces its origin all the way back to 2006, almost two decades. The catalyst way back in 2006 was the release of the L.U.C Strike One, a chiming watch that raised the question, can they produce the most complex and most prestigious of all the chiming complications, the grande sonnerie?
You can follow the development of the L.U.C Grand Strike through the brand’s other haute horological creations in the intervening years. The L.U.C Quattro with quad barrel system was an exploration of how to provide a suitable power reserve. The L.U.C Full Strike introduced a patented sapphire crystal gong mechanism that now features in the Grand Strike. But I’m probably getting ahead of myself, let’s take things back to basics for a moment and answer the question what is a grande sonnerie?
When it comes to chiming complications there is a distinct hierarchy. At the entry level you have the hourly chime, which chimes a single note once every hour, such as the Christopher Ward C1 Bel Canto. Then comes the minute repeater, which can chime the current time with the manual press of a pusher on demand. Next is the petite sonnerie, which automatically chimes the current hour of the day at the passing of each hour and then also chimes just the quarter hours. Last and most prestigious of all is the grande sonnerie which chimes the full time with hours and quarters every quarter hour.
To make things even more complicated for themselves, the L.U.C Grand Strike is a combination of a minute repeater, petite sonnerie and grande sonnerie all in one, paired with a tourbillon to boot. The two sonneries are modes you can choose between (a grande makes a petite obsolete, which is why the mode selector is necessary) along with a third mode for silent, while the minute repeater can always be activated manually as standard. One of the most surprising things to me is that it’s the petite sonnerie that actually puts the most strain on the movement rather than the seemingly more complex grande sonnerie. That’s because the petite sonnerie has to actively implement a brake to stop the chiming of the hours each quarter, consuming a lot of energy. As such, when the movement was put through chronometric testing by COSC, it was tested in petite sonnerie mode to show that even its least efficient mode is still within chronometer standards.
Powering all these chiming complications is the L.U.C 08.03-L with manual winding. It uses a dual barrel system with one barrel powering the timekeeping elements of the watch and the other dedicated to the chiming. That provides a 70-hour power reserve for the main watch and 12-hours of full chiming activations. The reason they choose a double barrel rather than the quad barrels they previously experimented with is primarily ergonomic, they wanted to keep the dimensions of the watch wearable. Which they have succeeded in as the white gold case measures 43mm x 14.08mm, which is positively svelte for a grande sonnerie. For example Patek Philippe’s Grandmaster Chime is almost 48mm, though it does layer a perpetual calendar on top.
The L.U.C Grand Strike has a skeletonised display with central hour and minute hands and a tourbillon at 6 o’clock with small seconds indicator. At 10 o’clock you can see the hammers which strike the sapphire gong to produce the sound. The key feature of the sapphire gongs is that they have a monobloc construction that connects directly to the sapphire glass above the dial, turning the entire display of the watch into a resonator to amplify the sound. You can see that the movement is finished immaculately with chamfered edges, brushing and polishing, which contributes to it being granted the Poinçon de Genève.
As Chopard’s most complicated watch to date, featuring 686 components, it’s no surprise that it’s price on request. It’s a major showcase of their watchmaking capabilities, though that was never really in doubt given the number of high-end L.U.C watches that they’ve produced in the 20 years since the quest to create the Grand Strike began. I wonder what quest they will embark on next?
Price and Specs:
More details at Chopard.
