Tackling the impossible is what our team of engineers does best. We've raised the bar yet again for ourselves and the Swiss watch industry with our pursuit to build the most price-accessible, most efficient and most precise Swiss Made micro-rotor tourbillon movement the world of watchmaking has seen.
The Unprecedented Horage K-TMR Calibre
One of the rarest combinations in watchmaking is a micro-rotor tourbillon, which has been reserved for the wealthiest connoisseurs. They’re difficult to engineer as micro-rotors and tourbillons have specific needs within a movement, so they’re often at odds with each other. The modularity of our K2 micro-rotor allowed us to successfully integrate it with our K-TOU tourbillon and create one of the most efficient and accurate micro-rotor tourbillon calibres.
Design Without Compromise
Many micro-rotor movements have a smaller balance wheel to help with efficiency, but that is counterproductive with a larger tourbillon. The tourbillon brings the balance and escapement together in a rotating cage, which is larger, much more sophisticated and more power-hungry than a conventional setup. This presents a very difficult engineering challenge to watchmakers as bridges and gear trains need to be reworked to develop a successful micro-rotor tourbillon.
Our titanium tourbillon cage is just 0.29 grams, 3.9mm thin, and the escapement and hairspring are silicon. This lightweight and efficient tourbillon couples well with a perfectly balanced PT-950 platinum micro-rotor, and the target power reserve is aimed to be high at upwards of 72 hours (3 full days). The K-TMR movement itself is an evolution of the K2 micro-rotor and K-TOU tourbillon, both proven and efficient COSC calibres.
Horological Unicorn
As mentioned, Swiss micro-rotor tourbillons are exceptionally rare. Very few watchmakers attempt to produce them and there’s a shortage of information out there as a result. A few major brands have toyed with the concept, such as Bell & Ross with the BR-X2, Hublot with the Big Bang Tourbillon Black Magic and Corum with the Admiral's Cup Legend 42 Tourbillon Micro-Rotor. All are very limited in numbers with prices in the mid-five figures or into six figures. You’re much more likely to see a multi-axis tourbillon, repeater or peripheral rotor than a micro-rotor tourbillon.
The tourbillon was invented way back in the late 1700s and patented by Breguet in 1801. The micro-rotor came much later in the mid-1950s, but combining the two in one movement has proved elusive for most. We’ve had nonstop requests to marry our most popular two movements, the K2 micro-rotor and K-TOU tourbillon, so we used our existing knowledge of the movements and engineering toolkit to blend the two into an integrated sports watch, the Autark Tourbillon in Grade 5 titanium.
Customization
We believe in customization and like our inaugural K-TOU tourbillon piece, the Tourbillon 1, we’re offering three custom colour options for the new K-TMR - a sporty deep red, deep blue or classic anthracite. Hand finishing includes Côtes de Genève, a quadratic black gold bridge and our signature open-worked grid pattern. Movement customization is already rare in luxury watchmaking and it’s even less likely with such a sophisticated movement like the K-TMR micro-rotor tourbillon.
An Unprecedented Opportunity
It’s not an overstatement to call the Autark Tourbillon with the new K-TMR Caliber an unprecedented opportunity. This combination in a movement is already extremely rare, so bringing a proprietary Swiss piece to a much broader audience was our goal. As performance watchmakers, we never artificially inflate prices and want as many watch enthusiasts as possible to enjoy complex and luxury pieces that are otherwise unobtainable. We’ve achieved this with the K-TMR micro-rotor tourbillon.
Pre-Order
The first watch to make use of the K-TMR will be the Autark Tourbillon. A timeline of 18 months from the start of pre-orders to completion is expected. In an upcoming post, we will share all the watch details and the exact date of pre-order. At just under 10,000 CHF the Autark Tourbillon will be the best-value Swiss Made titanium flying tourbillon micro-rotor movement timepiece ever produced.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments, share with the watch community and be a part of our ongoing Mission Independence.
Until next time...
Erik Slaven & Landon Stirling
The Autark Tourbillon post is now live! Video premiers at 13:00 CET. We listened to your comments and tried to integrate as much as we could. Of course we cannot accommodate every request as that would turn into a production and financial nightmare, but I think the team has landed on some solid options that meet the majority of requests.