In-Depth: Girard-Perregaux Debuts All-New Automatic Calibre
The GP4800 succeeds the 3000-series.
Girard-Perregaux (GP) has just taken the covers off a new in-house movement that will serve as a versatile platform for the brand, the Girard-Perregaux GP4800.
Historically a significant producer of automatic movements, GP marks a milestone with the new, high-performance base movement that will gradually replace the 3000 family of movements that was once a workhorse employed by several high-end brands.
Initial thoughts
GP’s most famous creations are undoubtedly the historical Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges and the more recent Constant Escapement. Significant as they may be, neither illustrates the brand’s past strength as a manufacture in the early decades of contemporary watchmaking post-Quartz Crisis, in particular GP’s position as a leading supplier of automatic movements.
It all began with the 3000 family of calibres introduced in 1994. Desirable for its slimness and high performance – the 3000 series was sub-3 mm thick while ticking at 4 Hz – this versatile platform served not only as a base for many of the brand’s own timepieces, but also powered well-known watches made by a number of prominent brands, including Cartier, Daniel Roth, Vacheron Constantin, and even MB&F.
A GP3000 found in the MB&F HM2
And then inverted in the MB&F HM8 Mark 2
The new GP4800 is clearly meant to replace the venerable-yet-aging 3000-series. Boasting a modern architecture and fine technical chops, the GP4800 is a step towards reclaiming GP’s past success as a movement maker of note.
In brief, the new GP4800 is a thoroughly modern calibre that ticks many of the right boxes. Notably, Girard-Perregaux went for an up-market free-sprung oscillator, a feature that’s been slowly diffusing across the brand’s portfolio of movements for the past few years. The manufacture also constructed a sturdy yet good-looking architecture clearly inspired by the brand’s heritage with the Three Gold Bridges. Against this backdrop, the 55-hour power reserve seems a bit short, but it looks like the single mainspring stores sufficient torque to power modular complications in the future.
But does the GP4800 have the potential of achieving the same success as the 3000-series? In terms of movement specs, definitely, but the macro landscape is very different now compared to the 1990s and early 2000s.
Today, there are many ébauche suppliers catering to independent brands at every level of the price spectrum, while most large brands have consolidated and vertically integrated, making it unlikely we’ll see the GP4800 inside a Vacheron Constantin or MB&F.
Whether GP will want to supply its latest calibre to other brands or retain the movement solely for its own catalogue remains to be seen, but it could provide some competition for Vaucher for niche brands seeking something more upmarket than Sellita or La Joux-Perret.
The manufacture‘s history
At the time of its introduction, the 3000 family (made up of the cals. 3000, 3100, 3200, and 3300) was a forward-thinking, potent movement. The cal. 3000 boasted a power reserve of about 50 hours and a Triovis regulator, along with an automatic rotor pivoting on ceramic ball bearings.
The 3000 series was suited for mass-production, while being easily serviceable and high quality. Importantly, the movement was thin and comparable in diameter to the ETA 2892, making it well suited to men’s watches while being more sophisticated and high-end than the equivalent ETA.
In GP’s own catalogue, the movement was adapted to power many modular complications, from perpetual calendars to chronographs, and continues to be employed by GP to this day.
Over time, ETA and then Sellita movements became dominant in the entry level and mid-range of the ébauche market, while makers like Vaucher captured the higher end of the market. Additionally, several specialists also began constructing customised calibres for brands. As a result, the GP cal. 3000 was pushed out of the spotlight, though it continued to underpin GP’s own line-up.
In the late 2010s, GP was acquired by the Kering Group, along with Ulysse Nardin and Sigatec. Consolidated under the new ownership, GP turned its focus to developing new movements for its own use, perfecting the Constant Escapement along the way.
A modern trinity
The new calibre GP4800 is entirely different and much improved over the 3000-series, from its core architecture to its overall aesthetics. The new movement is built to today’s technical norms, notably with its high-tech silicon escapement and a free-sprung balance.
As far as basic specifications go, the GP4800 is conventional with a smallish diameter of 25.6 mm and a thickness of 4.28 mm. The size makes it suited to a range of case sizes, particularly catering to today’s taste for smaller men’s watches, and leaves room for an even smaller diameter variant to be constructed. It was also developed with the accommodation of future complication modules in mind.
The GP4800 beats at 4 Hz and runs for 55 hours on a single barrel. This is by no means a long power reserve, especially since the watch is not running at a high-beat rate, which is a missed opportunity given the prevalence of three-day power reserves today.
Though not evident at first glance due to the rotor, the GP4800 was inspired by the “Three Gold Bridges” architecture of GP’s historical tourbillon pocket watches, a distinctive approach that has been fundamental to GP since the late 19th century, even becoming part of its logo today.
The bridge layout is relatively linear and lateral: a full bridge for the balance, a middle bridge for the winding mechanism and going train, and a barrel bridge to form the trinity.
In modern watchmaking, the imposing, full balance bridge was popularised by Rolex in the 1990s and later adopted by wide range of other manufacturers, from Omega to Nomos. It is often cited as offering greater structural stability and shock resistance than a conventional single-sided balance cock.
Yet the balance bridge actually goes much further back than that, having been employed by GP as early as 1867, when the brand’s founder presented the first Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges pocket watch to the world. In the following years, GP also created three-bridge movements without a tourbillon, making them the spiritual ancestor of the GP4800.
Technically, a full balance bridge provides more stability to the regulating organ and allows for a more accurate endshake adjustment. GP opted for a skeletonised balance bridge, which reveals most of the oscillator.
The regulating organ itself is well-made, although the form of the balance wheel is eerily reminiscent of Ulysse Nardin designs, perhaps reflecting the shared ownership of the two brands.
Crafted from an unspecified alloy which is definitely not Glucydur, the balance wheel carries two pairs of white gold regulating screws, making it free-sprung. Such free-sprung balances are slowly becoming the norm due their superior stability; it’s reassuring great to see GP’s technical bureau went with this approach.
The hairspring is flat and a metallic alloy, which is curious since GP’s sister company could easily have supplied silicon hairsprings for the GP4800 – that might be something planned for the future.
The constructors of the GP4800 did, however, go for a Swiss lever escapement in silicon. Like the balance wheel, the geometry of the escapement also brings to mind the one employed by Ulysse Nardin, which is again unsurprising.
The benefits of silicon escapements are many, including resistance to magnetism, lower friction operation, and extreme ease is assembly, since the pieces are etched perfectly and don’t require any manual correction.
Winding the barrel is a full rotor, which is uni-directional – the rotor actively winds the barrel only in one direction. When rotating in the other direction, the rotor is basically de-clutched and spins freely.
The choice of an unidirectional rotor might seem odd, since the trend with modern movements is to use a bi-directional winding system. Rolex swears by it, as do modern calibres from Omega, Breitling and Seiko.
Yet there is an argument to be made about the thickness savings with a uni-directional rotor compared to a more complex, taller bi-directional mechanism. And there is no concrete evidence that one system is more efficient than the other in practice.
Notably, the uni-directional rotor was the same approach employed by the cal. 3000. At MB&F, the free-spinning rotor became a signature design element of the brand’s watches with inverted movements, which later inspired the M.A.D. 1.
The rotor itself runs on a broad ball bearing race and is fashioned out of 18K gold. It is by far the best-finished part of the GP4800 movement – appropriate given its size and visual prominence – and decorated with a tasteful combination of brushed, grained and highly polished surfaces.
One detail of the winding mechanism I would have changed is the circlip-type fastener that secures the intermediate reverser wheel connected to the rotor. The clip is reliable but not especially elegant.
Despite the historical inspiration, the movement bridges are modern but appealing. The movement could benefit from more colour, perhaps plating the balance bridge to highlight the “three bridges” construction.
The decoration is undoubtedly machine-applied, but attractive – typical modern industrial haute horlogerie. The cotes de Geneve are tidy, while all of the three bridges sport sharply milled anglage.
The area of the base plate surrounding the balance wheel, however, is simply sandblasted, leaving it looking a little naked save for “Silicium Escapement” text (though the engraving is not gilded like the rest of the inscriptions). While the decoration was probably selected to match the modern aesthetics, this area would have benefited from perlage.
Concluding perspective
The GP4800 is undoubtedly a promising calibre developed with modern sensibilities in mind. With its clean, refined styling, the new movement will serve well as the brand’s new go-to workhorse, though the movement decoration and colours are still a little bland.
For many years now GP was criticised for not updating the aging 3000 series, especially since consumer preferences tend to favour latest-generation in-house movements, driven in part by the the marketing of watch brands themselves. With the GP4800, the brand might just have the chance to regain some of its 1990s manufacture glory.
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