Montblanc Collection Villeret 1858 ExoTourbillon Chronographe

The last watch from Montblanc that I want to write about belongs to the same ultra-luxury Collection Villeret 1858 as the gorgeous Vintage Chronographe.

Presented last month at the SIHH 2010 show, the new Montblanc ExoTourbillon Chronographe watch offers Montblanc’s own take on the well-known tourbillon escapement complication. As the name implies, the tourbillon module features a unique design with its tourbillon cage separated from the balance spring and hovering gracefully just atop of the nicely decorated black dial.

Besides the obvious visual difference from the “ordinary” tourbillon watches, this kind of design also allows watchmakers from Institut Minerva to make the tourbillon cage significantly smaller, thus reducing its mass and increasing the timekeeper’s energy efficiency by some 30 percent.

Although Montblanc ExoTourbillon Chronographe‘s dial layout looks deceptively simple, it is also quite an unusual piece of work.

The “main” subdial at 6 o’clock that features two similarly shaped hands in fact serves to display time in two different time zones: white gold hand shows current time and the heat-blued hand shows time in another time zone. Since the dial features only twelve Roman numerals, there is also a smaller subdial at 4 o’clock that tells whether it is day or night in the other part of the globe (well, to my taste, a simple AM/PM indicator would certainly do the job a lot better.) So, the watch is in fact a regulateur with a twist.

Two other subdials located at 3 and 9 o’clock are a 30-minute totalizer for the watch’s monopusher chronograph complication and a small seconds counter.

The Calibre 16.60 hand-wound movement is hidden inside a pretty impressive 47mm case, which is available either in red or white gold. Well, I must say that I really like this watch.

Photos: Montblanc

Montblanc ExoTourbillon Chronographe watch specification

Price range: N/A
Movement: Calibre 16.60, hand-wound
Complications: Chronograph, GMT, external tourbillon
Power reserve: N/A
Case material: Red gold or White gold
Bezel material: Red gold or White gold
Case shape: Round
Transparent case back: Yes, sapphire case back
Case size: 47 mm
Case height: N/A
Dial: Black
Numerals: Arabic and Roman
Hands: N/A
Strap: Black leather
Crystal: Sapphire, AR-coated
Water resistance: N/A

Posted on February 16th, 2010 by Evgueni Matoussevitch in Swiss Watches

Tags: 47 mm, Calibre 16.60, Chronograph, Collection Villeret 1858, ExoTourbillon, GMT, manual, monopusher, Mont blanc, Montblanc, red gold, SIHH 2010, Tourbillon, white gold