The Bugatti Chiron needs no introduction; powered by 1500hp and 1600 Nm from an 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 engine, it is as over-the-top a production car will ever get. So, the burning question is, which matching timepiece does a Chiron owner slip on when going out for a drive?
At US$ 280,000 a pop, the Jacob & Co Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon isn’t nearly as stratospherically priced in the horology world as the Chiron is for a car, but in terms of complications (in the watch sense), the New York-based jeweller took the literal route in paying tribute to the Chiron by giving it a working W16 ‘engine’ driven by an in-house hand-wound movement with a 60-hour power reserve and a Tourbillion regulator for accurate time-keeping.
Yes, you’ve read right. Housed within an ‘engine block’ made of sapphire is a CNC-milled steel crankshaft flanked by two main clusters of pistons and cylinder, each with its own narrow-vee configuration and a pair of turbochargers, just like the real thing. The Bugatti Chiron Tourbillonare has three crowns; pressing the rightmost one gets the W16 cranking, the middle crown winds the movement while the leftmost crown sets the time.
The mechanicals of the watch movements and the miniature W16 ‘engine’ are also suspended on four shock absorbers and sealed in a case made of titanium and sapphire crystal, replete with a power reserve meter mimicking a car’s fuel gauge. Taste is personal, and some horologists will no doubt recoil at the fact that such an outrageous timepiece even exists. But whether you think it’s cool or grotesque, the Jacob & Co Bugatti Chiron Tourbillon does arguably echo the excessiveness of the hypercar which inspired it.
