The 2012 Aiguille d’Or prize for the TAG Heuer Mikrogirder
By MyWatch
The TAG Heuer Mikrogirder has won this year’s Aiguille d’Or, the top prize at the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix ceremonies, and the most coveted distinction in the global watch industry.
“We’re absolutely ecstatic,” said Jean-Christophe Babin, TAG Heuer President and CEO. “We’ve won our share of Grand Prix over the years but this is the first time we have been singled out as the best overall watch in all categories.”
Held each November in the Grand Theatre of Geneva, the “Grand Prix de l’Horlogerie de Genève” is the equivalent of ”Oscar Night” for the watch industry. The jury-awarded prizes recognize the most outstanding watches of the year in ten categories.
With this 8th Grand Prix de l’Horlogerie de Genève award in just 11 years, TAG Heuer confirms its unrivalled mastery of extremely complex timepieces.
“We’re very proud of this achievement,” said Jean-Christophe Babin, TAG Heuer President and CEO. “The Mikrogirder represents a new class of watch technology, nothing less than the complete re-invention of the mechanism that has driven mechanical watches for over 300 years.”
The TAG Heuer Mikrogirder Chronograph is a dual-assortment, ultra high-frequency watch. It is the first timepiece ever created with neither a balance wheel nor a hairspring, and is accurate to an unprecedented 5/10,000 or 1/2,000 of a second. It beats 7.2 million times every hour and has a flying central chronograph hand that rotates 20 times per second.
A completely new system regulates the watch: instead of the spiral shape in a classical hairspring, it works with a coupling beam/girder and excitatory beam/girder system and a linear oscillator. Conceived, developed and manufactured in-house in the company’s R&D lab in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, it is the fastest mechanical regulator ever crafted and tested.
The design is equally stunning–rubber strap with an anthracite dial that looks like a combination of classic Carrera and vintage Heuer stopwatch. The case is assymetrical, slightly rising at an angle at the top part, where the crown and chronograph pushers are located.
“We are grateful to the jury for acknowledging this breakthrough,” said Jean-Christophe Babin.”The Mikrogirder changes the way mechanical energy is generated, stored and regulated. It opens a promising new era in watchmaking, with potentially powerful and energy-sparing new movements precise to ever-smaller fractions of time”.
