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New Release: Jacob & Co. Bugatti Tourbillon Watch Comes With a Working V16 Engine



New Bugatti super sports cars mean new Jacob & Co. super watches – and you know, in times like these, that’s no exaggeration. Just days after Bugatti unveiled its tourbillon super sports car, the Jacob & Co. Bugatti Tourbillon Watch also debuted, making its way onto the wrists of new Bugatti owners.

Continuing with past tradition, the latest Bugatti automotive watch also features an automatic replica of the car’s engine. To the surprise of the world, Bugatti replaced the “old” quad-turbo W16 engine with a new naturally aspirated V16 engine, which meant that an overly long block had to be installed in the car – and a timepiece to match. Jacob & Co. says its father-and-son founder-CEO duo visited Bugatti in September 2022 and January 2023 to preview the Bugatti Tourbillon in advance so they can prepare to design a watch to match the latest Bugatti car.

Jacob & Co. took on the challenge and improved upon its previous Bugatti Chiron watch – check out our hands-on review of the $1.5 million watch. Here’s how it works: The engine block is carved from a clear block of sapphire crystal, and the 16 pistons are machined from tiny blocks of titanium, mounted and driven by a single-axis crankshaft. Just like the ICE (internal combustion engine) of a Bugatti hypercar.

Just like the 1,000-horsepower, 8.3-liter V16 engine in the Bugatti Tourbillon car, the "engine" inside the Jacob & Co. Bugatti Tourbillon watch had to be very precisely machined and assembled, or the crankshaft and all its tiny fluctuations (pins, pistons, webs and mounting points) wouldn't work. Jacob & Co. even made sure the "firing order" and, more importantly, their sequence matched the car's (although, of course, nothing will explode in a Bugatti watch). There are also four sets of four exhaust manifolds, which are exquisite.

In slightly more mundane watchmaking news, the Jacob & Co. Bugatti Tourbillon watch features a tourbillon - of course, it does feature a tourbillon - that runs twice as fast as most tourbillons, rotating once around its axis every 30 seconds. It's also a flying tourbillon, meaning it's only fixed from below, with no upper bridge to obscure the view. The 557-part movement has a 48-hour power reserve and runs at 3Hz, with enough power to power 20 full animation sequences before it needs to be wound. There’s even a power reserve indicator that indicates this feature via a smaller hand in the power reserve counter. Time is indicated by two retrograde hands, giving the car-themed display more depth.

On the wrist, Jacob & Co.’s Bugatti Tourbillon watch looks a bit odd. To its credit, despite its complexity and number of parts, it’s still a wearable size, especially by Jacob & Co. standards. The black PVD-coated titanium case measures 52mm x 44mm, and both straps feature a lug-less design. At 15mm overall, it’s not the same thickness as the 7750-equipped chronograph, but it showcases more functionality. Over the years, Jacob & Co. has made admirable progress in packaging its highly complex movements in increasingly compact ways, thereby improving wearability.

You can also expect the quality of workmanship and execution to be excellent as well – as it should be for a watch that costs more than many luxury sports cars. For example, the crown is shaped to look like the control knobs in the cockpit of a Bugatti Tourbillon – though, oddly, can we say that the car’s dashboard might be more spectacular, as in “meshing wheels and hands chasing each other”? Who knows, maybe Jacob & Co. will come up with a sportier watch that pays homage to this fantastic dashboard.

Jacob & Co. certainly left itself some extra wiggle room: this black titanium watch is limited edition, and the watch brand promises to create a watch to match the 250 cars produced over the years. That said, we can expect some sapphire- or colored gemstone-set versions in the future, which will probably cost many times more than this one. Until then, one can dream of watching the tiny titanium pistons in action in the sapphire engine block of this Bugatti-inspired watch.