G'day,

what can i say about this one?
First of all, itīs the probably the fact you could see me sitting in front of it for quite some time, staring at this beauty with the jaw dropped.

Itīs simply breathtaking and - as much as i tried - itīs impossible for me to capture the depth of the movement. That makes a lot of ítīs fascination, together with the automatic winding which is so hard to see.

The casework is very clever: itīs designed to be worn, with a relatively high bezel and a very flat back. It gets wider towards the back; as the back side of the movement is actually the dial side (of the vintage originals), itīs a very unusual shape. This case does have a somewhat massive appearance and itīs not a light case; the inner "hour ring" is part of the case and it does result in a very substantial casework. Yet, it is not detracting from the movement, but rather compliments it.
And it just looks much better on the wrist!

So here we go, another poor picture of a true beauty you will not see that often (back orders at GP Swiss reach 2008...):



not for the faint hearted! modem-burning size 255kb picture

Still, it does have to be seen in the wild to fully "get it"...

Greetings from germany,

Peter

In a way, that is a looong wait...even more tempting as it does not eat into the budget if I put a downpayment on one...hmmmm.

Hi Bernard,

the production of GPīs tourbillon pieces will not be increased, although they certainly could do more.
But thatīs not the way they want to handle it.

Given the 2004 news, the portfolio is pretty impressive:

• Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, manual wind
  
  • President case
    
  • Classic case
  
  
  
• Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, manual wind, sceleton
  
  
• Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, automatic
  
  • President case
    
  • Classic case
    
  • Vintage45 case
  
  
  
• Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, automatic, sceleton
  
  
• Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, manual wind, perpetual calendar
  
  
• Three Gold Bridges Tourbillon, manual wind, perpetual calendar, chronograph (="Enzo")
  
  
• Single Gold Bridge Tourbillon, automatic
  
  • Richeville case
    
  • Vintage45 case

So thereīs quite a variety and each pieces is a limited production, particularly for the sceletons.
The Vintage45 seems to have quite some fans and the brand new perpetual calendar version is truly a stunning piece; as beautiful as the automatic version, just a bit more "understated" as the movement is visible on the back only.

Although i wil not break it up to specific figures, i can say thereīs a bit of demand and a wait list is not a surprise: Here in germany a Vintage45 automatic in RG, ordered in early 2002, was delivered two weeks ago. It still is not perfectly clear when the next one will arrive, so thereīs already a wait list.
Iīd imagine this will not be different, with the additional models (and complicated at that) they added now.
So it may or may not be earlier than 2008; just that +2 years wait list is not unheard of and iīm sure even increased capacities and the new premises (the Haute Horlogerie department moved recently) will not result in a higher output, as the new ones require more work to do.

Greetings,

Peter

nt