CARRERA MikroTourbillonS
| Brand : | TAG Heuer |
| Collection : | CARRERA |
| Model : | CARRERA MikroTourbillonS |
| Complement : | Tantalum - Rose Gold - Alligator Strap |
| On sale : | 2012 |
PDF INDEX CARD
-
Brand : TAG Heuer Collection : CARRERA Model : CARRERA MikroTourbillonS Complement : Tantalum - Rose Gold - Alligator Strap On sale : 2012 List Price : 185 000 € Diameter : 45 mm Styles : Sporty Atypical High Horology Types : Hand-winding Self-winding Calibre : MIKROTOURBILLONS Complication : 1/100th of a Second Display Tourbillon Chronograph Power Reserve Indicator 60-Second Counter 30-Minute Counter 1/10th of a Second Display Chronograph Case material : Pink gold Case peculiarity : Sapphire caseback Solid rose gold crown with overmoulded rubber Tantalum bezel and caseback Caseband in solid rose gold Pushers in solid rose gold Shape : Round Water-resistance : 100 meters Dial : Côtes de Genève Dial color : Charcoal Display : Luminescent hands Central1/100th of a second hand in solid rose gold Indexes : Arabic numerals Glass : Antireflective coating Sapphire Strap material : Alligator leather Strap color : Black Strap clasp : Folding buckle + More characteristics : Movement
Bi-directional self-winding for time function
Hand-winding for chronograph function
439 components
75 jewels
Diameter: 35.80mm (15 3/4''')
Thickness: 9.79mm
2 Tourbillons
Tourbillon 1 Frequency:
28800 vibrations / hour (4 Hz)
1 rotation every minute
Tourbillon 2 Frequency:
360000 vibrations / hour (50 Hz)
1 rotation every 5 seconds
Watch power reserve : 45 hours
Chronograph power reserve :
60 minutes
Tourbillons bridges in solid 18K 5N rose gold
Case
Solid 18K 5N rose gold
Sandblasted tantalum
Hand-sewn alligator strap. soft touch
Sandblasted tantalum folding clasp
DESCRIPTION
- AVANT-GARDE HAUTE HORLOGERIE BY TAG HEUER
Traditional watchmaking challenged by pioneering engineers pushing science and art toward new boundaries of the possible
Avant-Garde Haute Horlogerie by TAG Heuer :
A Manifesto
A rich and specific culture. A professional ethic. An all-consuming passion.
Where the enduring expertise of the artisan confronts the trailblazing imagination of the engineer. Where knowledge and know-how meet and embrace a living history, centuries old.
At TAG Heuer, artisans work hand in hand with engineers to reinvent the future.
Different disciplines, one impulse.
To open eyes wide.
To set records, then smash them.
To shock those who say no into seeing yes.
To lure time and space, fractions of the immeasurable and unbounded, into their most breathtaking configurations.
More precisely: to be the best and the fastest, the most accurate and the most avant-garde.
This is Haute Horlogerie by TAG Heuer, a state of mind that exploits, side by side, the pioneering achievements of 17th century watchmakers and the most awe-inspiring technologies of today. TAG Heuer haute horlogerists do not reproduce the amazing achievements of their predecessors — the beautiful minds who set the conventional rules of classical haute horlogerie. Instead, by adopting and adapting the innovative approaches of their forerunners, and pushing these to the outer limits of the possible, they create the classics of tomorrow.
Through this visionary heritage, TAG Heuer has earned an asserted legitimacy as the acknowledged master of the technological vanguard of haute horlogerie. The brand’s strongly defined personality is esteemed by peers and fine watch connoisseurs alike.
This unique character has engendered the most innovative watches and chronographs ever created. TAG Heuer’s MIKROTOURBILLONS is one of them.
MASTERPIECES
THE MIKROTOURBILLONS
THE ULTIMATE IN HIGH PRECISION HAUTE HORLOGERIE
TAG Heuer’s most ambitious luxury chronograph to date, the MikrotourbillonS is not only the world’s fastest tourbillon: it is the first ever tourbillon on a 1/100th of a second chronograph that can be started and stopped, an audacious timepiece of peerless precision and virtuosic savoir-faire Even by TAG Heuer’s own pioneering metrics, the dual-chain, double-barreled MIKROTOURBILLONS, is entirely off-the-chart extraordinary. The first tourbillon chronograph capable of certification-level precision timing, it is by far the fastest, most accurate and most breathtakingly beautiful tourbillon ever imagined.
“We call it a movement because that is what it does, at the same rhythm, around the clock. A physical force and a machine so complex that it seizes your breath, with as many components — muscles and bones — as a human, and its own beautiful, tireless heart, pumping infinite energy from its impossibly intricate core. One glance and you’re gone, down a vortex of transcendent wonder.”
Jack Heuer
REANIMATING TOURBILLON TECHNOLOGY
A tourbillon (French for ‘vortex’ or ‘whirlwind’) is the most intricate and iconic complication in haute horlogerie. An elaborate mechanical system for regulating the speed at which a watch ‘beats’, this ingenious complication overcomes the effects of gravity by placing the movement’s balance wheel and escapement inside a rotating cage. Revolutionary when it was invented in 1801, modern precision techniques, many developed by TAG Heuer, have made it obsolete. Yet the tourbillon remains a classic ‘novelty’ feature of many high-end luxury watches because, in its ornate complexity, usually visible through a window in the dial, it is the ultimate attention getter—a showcase of watchmaker virtuosity.
Beautifully complex but slow, imprecise and unnecessary: for these reasons, TAG Heuer, the most precision-driven, performance-obsessed of all the high-end luxury Swiss watch houses, had never made a tourbillon escapement watch.
That is, until TAG Heuer’s Science & Engineering department, in its pursuit of zero-tolerance chronograph precision, took up the challenge of reinventing the tourbillon, making it not just a delight to look at but, like all TAG Heuer creations, unbelievably fast, precise, and avant-garde. The result is a mechanical wonder that breaks all records for speed and accuracy, and sets the stage for the first-ever dual-certifiable chronograph.
at a standard tourbillon speed of once a minute. The second, the world’s fastest tourbillon, controls the 1/100th-of-a-second chronograph and is dynamically compensated to run at 50 hertz, meaning it beats at 360,000 beats per hour and rotates at a dizzying five seconds per revolution, or 12 times a minute. Another mind-numbing technical prowess: it has no cage and can be started and stopped thanks to the dual chain architecture.
UNIQUE 2-CHAIN ARCHITECTURE
Since 1969, the year TAG Heuer launched the world’s first automatic chronograph movement, coupling watch movement with chronograph function has become standard operation procedure. There is a serious “hitch”, however, with this isochronous system: its wheel chain gear system increases energy loss.
This is one of the greatest quandaries of chronograph design — how to keep chronograph operation from disrupting watch operation.
A first avenue of research led to the TAG Heuer Calibre 360 in March 2005 with its additional module for the chronograph. Then the answer came with the TAG Heuer Mikrograph 1/100th of a second Chronograph in January 2011, ingeniously outfitted with two independent kinematic chains — one for the watch and one for the chronograph, integrated in the same movement.
The MIKROTOURBILLONS is built with the same integrated movement with dual chain architecture, thereby eliminating the need for a clutch. Separating the watch chain from the chronograph chain eliminates the risks of the chronograph influencing the watch and vice-versa; but most importantly, it reduces energy loss and optimizes the precision of the chronograph’s regulating organ. This dual chain architecture allows the all “MIKRO” timepieces (MIKROTOURBILLONS, MIKROGIRDER, MIKROTIMER and MIKROGRAPH) to be ISO 3159 compliant across the board. The MIKROTIMER and the MIKROGRAPH are already COSC certified — i.e. with the chronograph function running, a feat virtually impossible to achieve by conventional mono-frequency chronographs.
A STUNNING RE-INTERPRETATION OF THE ICONIC CARRERA
The Carrera, TAG Heuer's iconic bestseller since 1963, was the obvious choice of case and finishing for this game-changing chronograph. The materials are noble: highly corrosive-resistant Tantalum with rose gold horns, sublime “Côte de Genève” decoration and a sumptuous, hand-sewn soft-touch strap in alligator. The chronograph minute counter is at 3 o’clock, chronograph seconds at 6 o’clock and a power reserve at 12 o’clock. The once-a-second central flying hand displays 1/10th and 1/100th increments. A single crown at 3 o’clock winds the watch and the chronograph — the rotor winds the barrel on the watch movement, while the chronograph is manually charged. In total, there are 439 components in the movement, many of which are patent pending and all but the two hairsprings built in-house at TAG Heuer’s manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Now TAG Heuer is working on a first-ever precision certification for chronographs to complement the COSC certificate for chronometers (watches).
- AVANT-GARDE HAUTE HORLOGERIE BY TAG HEUER
Traditional watchmaking challenged by pioneering engineers pushing science and art toward new boundaries of the possible
Avant-Garde Haute Horlogerie by TAG Heuer :
A Manifesto
A rich and specific culture. A professional ethic. An all-consuming passion.
Where the enduring expertise of the artisan confronts the trailblazing imagination of the engineer. Where knowledge and know-how meet and embrace a living history, centuries old.
At TAG Heuer, artisans work hand in hand with engineers to reinvent the future.
Different disciplines, one impulse.
To open eyes wide.
To set records, then smash them.
To shock those who say no into seeing yes.
To lure time and space, fractions of the immeasurable and unbounded, into their most breathtaking configurations.
More precisely: to be the best and the fastest, the most accurate and the most avant-garde.
This is Haute Horlogerie by TAG Heuer, a state of mind that exploits, side by side, the pioneering achievements of 17th century watchmakers and the most awe-inspiring technologies of today. TAG Heuer haute horlogerists do not reproduce the amazing achievements of their predecessors — the beautiful minds who set the conventional rules of classical haute horlogerie. Instead, by adopting and adapting the innovative approaches of their forerunners, and pushing these to the outer limits of the possible, they create the classics of tomorrow.
Through this visionary heritage, TAG Heuer has earned an asserted legitimacy as the acknowledged master of the technological vanguard of haute horlogerie. The brand’s strongly defined personality is esteemed by peers and fine watch connoisseurs alike.
This unique character has engendered the most innovative watches and chronographs ever created. TAG Heuer’s MIKROTOURBILLONS is one of them.
MASTERPIECES
THE MIKROTOURBILLONS
THE ULTIMATE IN HIGH PRECISION HAUTE HORLOGERIE
TAG Heuer’s most ambitious luxury chronograph to date, the MikrotourbillonS is not only the world’s fastest tourbillon: it is the first ever tourbillon on a 1/100th of a second chronograph that can be started and stopped, an audacious timepiece of peerless precision and virtuosic savoir-faire Even by TAG Heuer’s own pioneering metrics, the dual-chain, double-barreled MIKROTOURBILLONS, is entirely off-the-chart extraordinary. The first tourbillon chronograph capable of certification-level precision timing, it is by far the fastest, most accurate and most breathtakingly beautiful tourbillon ever imagined.
“We call it a movement because that is what it does, at the same rhythm, around the clock. A physical force and a machine so complex that it seizes your breath, with as many components — muscles and bones — as a human, and its own beautiful, tireless heart, pumping infinite energy from its impossibly intricate core. One glance and you’re gone, down a vortex of transcendent wonder.”
Jack Heuer
REANIMATING TOURBILLON TECHNOLOGY
A tourbillon (French for ‘vortex’ or ‘whirlwind’) is the most intricate and iconic complication in haute horlogerie. An elaborate mechanical system for regulating the speed at which a watch ‘beats’, this ingenious complication overcomes the effects of gravity by placing the movement’s balance wheel and escapement inside a rotating cage. Revolutionary when it was invented in 1801, modern precision techniques, many developed by TAG Heuer, have made it obsolete. Yet the tourbillon remains a classic ‘novelty’ feature of many high-end luxury watches because, in its ornate complexity, usually visible through a window in the dial, it is the ultimate attention getter—a showcase of watchmaker virtuosity.
Beautifully complex but slow, imprecise and unnecessary: for these reasons, TAG Heuer, the most precision-driven, performance-obsessed of all the high-end luxury Swiss watch houses, had never made a tourbillon escapement watch.
That is, until TAG Heuer’s Science & Engineering department, in its pursuit of zero-tolerance chronograph precision, took up the challenge of reinventing the tourbillon, making it not just a delight to look at but, like all TAG Heuer creations, unbelievably fast, precise, and avant-garde. The result is a mechanical wonder that breaks all records for speed and accuracy, and sets the stage for the first-ever dual-certifiable chronograph.
at a standard tourbillon speed of once a minute. The second, the world’s fastest tourbillon, controls the 1/100th-of-a-second chronograph and is dynamically compensated to run at 50 hertz, meaning it beats at 360,000 beats per hour and rotates at a dizzying five seconds per revolution, or 12 times a minute. Another mind-numbing technical prowess: it has no cage and can be started and stopped thanks to the dual chain architecture.
UNIQUE 2-CHAIN ARCHITECTURE
Since 1969, the year TAG Heuer launched the world’s first automatic chronograph movement, coupling watch movement with chronograph function has become standard operation procedure. There is a serious “hitch”, however, with this isochronous system: its wheel chain gear system increases energy loss.
This is one of the greatest quandaries of chronograph design — how to keep chronograph operation from disrupting watch operation.
A first avenue of research led to the TAG Heuer Calibre 360 in March 2005 with its additional module for the chronograph. Then the answer came with the TAG Heuer Mikrograph 1/100th of a second Chronograph in January 2011, ingeniously outfitted with two independent kinematic chains — one for the watch and one for the chronograph, integrated in the same movement.
The MIKROTOURBILLONS is built with the same integrated movement with dual chain architecture, thereby eliminating the need for a clutch. Separating the watch chain from the chronograph chain eliminates the risks of the chronograph influencing the watch and vice-versa; but most importantly, it reduces energy loss and optimizes the precision of the chronograph’s regulating organ. This dual chain architecture allows the all “MIKRO” timepieces (MIKROTOURBILLONS, MIKROGIRDER, MIKROTIMER and MIKROGRAPH) to be ISO 3159 compliant across the board. The MIKROTIMER and the MIKROGRAPH are already COSC certified — i.e. with the chronograph function running, a feat virtually impossible to achieve by conventional mono-frequency chronographs.
A STUNNING RE-INTERPRETATION OF THE ICONIC CARRERA
The Carrera, TAG Heuer's iconic bestseller since 1963, was the obvious choice of case and finishing for this game-changing chronograph. The materials are noble: highly corrosive-resistant Tantalum with rose gold horns, sublime “Côte de Genève” decoration and a sumptuous, hand-sewn soft-touch strap in alligator. The chronograph minute counter is at 3 o’clock, chronograph seconds at 6 o’clock and a power reserve at 12 o’clock. The once-a-second central flying hand displays 1/10th and 1/100th increments. A single crown at 3 o’clock winds the watch and the chronograph — the rotor winds the barrel on the watch movement, while the chronograph is manually charged. In total, there are 439 components in the movement, many of which are patent pending and all but the two hairsprings built in-house at TAG Heuer’s manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Now TAG Heuer is working on a first-ever precision certification for chronographs to complement the COSC certificate for chronometers (watches).
-
Brand : TAG Heuer Collection : CARRERA Model : CARRERA MikroTourbillonS Complement : Tantalum - Rose Gold - Alligator Strap On sale : 2012 List Price : 185 000 € Diameter : 45 mm Styles : Sporty Atypical High Horology Types : Hand-winding Self-winding Calibre : MIKROTOURBILLONS Complication : 1/100th of a Second Display Tourbillon Chronograph Power Reserve Indicator 60-Second Counter 30-Minute Counter 1/10th of a Second Display Chronograph Case material : Pink gold Case peculiarity : Sapphire caseback Solid rose gold crown with overmoulded rubber Tantalum bezel and caseback Caseband in solid rose gold Pushers in solid rose gold Shape : Round Water-resistance : 100 meters Dial : Côtes de Genève Dial color : Charcoal Display : Luminescent hands Central1/100th of a second hand in solid rose gold Indexes : Arabic numerals Glass : Antireflective coating Sapphire Strap material : Alligator leather Strap color : Black Strap clasp : Folding buckle More characteristics : Movement
Bi-directional self-winding for time function
Hand-winding for chronograph function
439 components
75 jewels
Diameter: 35.80mm (15 3/4''')
Thickness: 9.79mm
2 Tourbillons
Tourbillon 1 Frequency:
28800 vibrations / hour (4 Hz)
1 rotation every minute
Tourbillon 2 Frequency:
360000 vibrations / hour (50 Hz)
1 rotation every 5 seconds
Watch power reserve : 45 hours
Chronograph power reserve :
60 minutes
Tourbillons bridges in solid 18K 5N rose gold
Case
Solid 18K 5N rose gold
Sandblasted tantalum
Hand-sewn alligator strap. soft touch
Sandblasted tantalum folding clasp