Doesn’t time fly by! It’s hard to believe that five years have already passed since HORAGE launched the Tourbillion 1 timepiece back in February 2020. The very intense whirlwind which led up-to this critical point in our journey as a watchmaking company feels like it was just yesterday…..
Above: Tourbillion 1 Yellow Gold case
To say that it was this product, which really put HORAGE on the map would be quite the understatement. But life isn’t just about products. Tourbillion 1 also defined how we function as a brand and proved that our belief in wholeheartedly embracing transparency and harnessing the power of the community are not just the nebulous dreams of the marketing department – they are real world values that define and drive HORAGE.
With the passing of the 5 years, we can now smile about the numerous challenges, near misses and mini calamities which very nearly derailed the Tourbillion project. Stalled collaborative projects, and dead ends taught us some very important lessons –
1. Always have a B plan
and
2. You can achieve much more than you believed possible with passion, energy, focus…. and crucially the support of your loyal customers and fans!
We would be remiss for not mentioning the impact of COVID 19, an almost unprecedented global epidemic that crashing the production development party in Spring 2020. For many of us a memory we might prefer to completely erase from our consciousness………… But here’s the thing: without the Covid lockdowns which gave us the time to completely focus on one engineering project our team would never have gotten T1 over the line with such incredible speed and efficiency.
Above: Andi and Silvan spent a few hours on Tourbillion 1
Everyone at HORAGE is immensely proud of both the technical and human achievements embodied in Tourbillion 1. Our team designed, engineered, built, tested and delivered a product in record breaking time. Those of you who secured one of the 260 pieces that made up the one edition truly received an exceptional and unique product.
Above: Easy when you know how
Tourbillion 1 turbo charged our technical abilities enabling us to follow up with the even more ambitious K-TMR equipped timepieces a mere four years later, bringing together a seemingly impossible mix of Swiss precision manufacturing and advanced movement technology into an affordable package.
The range of Tourbillion equipped timepieces brought to market since Tourbillion 1 have embraced a very different design language and feel, a fact which hasn’t gone completed unnoticed by our eagle-eyed fans. This got us thinking ……. is the Tourbillion 1 story really over?
Were you lucky enough to get a T1?
Tell us about your time with T1 in the comments.
Did you miss out on T1?
Do you dream of being able to get one?
Stay tuned for part 2: live here on the forum February 27th
All the best from the HORAGE team
Absolutely love my Tourbillon 1! I'm hoping the new release isn't too good, for the sake of my finances.
Good question I will get back to you
mmmm I'm still waiting for some possibility of modification for my lensman 1 🫤
Happy Birthday! Interested in seeing the next release.
BTW - very cool 5 years anniversary cake 👌🍻
And since we’re doing long shot wish lists as well…
Titanium!
Automatic!
Sporty!
Visible mainspring (like Tb1)
bright colors!
Highly legible despite the avante garde design (like Tb1)
strong Functional lume hands indexes and an on arrow on the Tb (like tb1)
Very Long shots:
Hacking Tb
Some additional form of complication like a 30 second Tb / multi axis tb / a deadbeat second hand in addition to… etc. the GPHG winning kind of stuff 😜
Ok maybe shooting to high - but can’t wait to see it!
Missed Tb1 by a couple months - and was briefly inconsolable 😂
Hoped and prayed for version 2 for 5 long years 🤪
When TB1 came out, the world had $30k + Swiss or sub $1k, iffy looking, Chinese Tbs. Nope x2 for me. Nothing really for us in the middle. Horage changed perceptions and shocked the watch world.
5 years later it and it’s bit different? Olivier Mory makes a similar priced, nice looking Franco Swiss Tb (with a tide complication that would be handy for me, and probably nobody else) and Chinese quality keeps improving …
But I still love that purple blue silicon escapement and so am patiently awaiting the right Horage Tb1 cousin to make a comeback!
I'm exited to see what Tourbillon 1 v2.0 looks like. My (admittedly very unrealistic) wish list is:
1) Smaller case size or larger bezel - the proportions of a 41mm watch that's mostly dial gives too much wrist presence for me.
2) Media blasted Ti case - this would really complement the modern design of the Tourbillion 1 and offer a stealthy look.
3) Put the Horage logo on the skeletonised movement/watch face rather than the underside of the sapphire. The logo on the glass distracts from the movement a bit and IMHO cheapens the watch a bit.
4) Rather than the standard red, blue, gold etc. - give us some interesting colours for the anodised movement - e.g. forest green, purple, orange.
I expect that the reality of Tourbillion 1 v2.0 will evolution rather than revolution - i.e. the same Tourbillon 1 blueprint with some precious metal case options and maybe some more choice of movement colour (red, blue etc.).
Didn't manage to get one. But very happy to have gotten its successors - Lensman and Autark T