Autoblog

This is a tourbillon. Nobody needs a tourbillon – it's sort of like the supercar of watches. And nobody really needs a supercar. You can get a rally-tuned all-wheel-drive four-door Japanese family sedan that will get you from A to B just as fast, and with less fuss. Likewise you could get a digital Casio that will tell you the time just as well. What the tourbillon and the exotic supercar have in common is that X-factor that sets it apart from the rest. Fitting, then, that this is no ordinary tourbillon; this is the Aston Martin tourbillon.

The tourbillon mechanism was originally developed for pocket watches, which, sitting in the same position most of the time, would throw off the balance of the mechanism over time. The highly complicated tourbillon, French for "whirlwind", involves a mechanism that rotates inside the case, counteracting the effects of gravity. The Jaeger LeCoultre AMVOX 3 Tourbillon GMT you see here showcases the company's own proprietary JLC caliber 988 tourbillon movement, which features an AM/PM indicator and a 48-hour power reserve. Oh, and that second hand? That's not a second hand. It indicates the time in a second time zone...handy for the world traveler. The seconds are indicated by the rotation of the movement itself. The mechanism is housed in a black ceramic and 18-karat rose gold case sandwiched between sapphire crystals. The strap is perforated with contrasting white top-stitching, just in case the watch wasn't desirable enough already. But you can keep dreaming: only 300 are being made, and with fine tourbillons typically selling for five figures, don't be expecting one as a retirement gift from the company pension plan.

[Source: Sybarites]

Click image to view the high-res version, the DBS gallery

The Aston Martin DBS is one exclusive, expensive ride, with only 500 copies of the $250,000 car scheduled to be made each year. To up the exclusivity factor while also giving deep-pocketed DBS owners the ability to play James Bond, Swiss watchmaker Jaeger LeCoultre has designed a very exclusive chronograph strictly for DBS owners. The AMVOX2 chronograph has over 400 parts and costs an absolutely stunning $34,500. The timepiece, which is limited to 999 grade 5 titanium editions and 300 more exclusive Rose Gold wrist jewels, can actually open your DBS for you. Spending $35k on a good looking watch so you don't have to carry a key fob seems drastic to us poor folk, but when you've got money to burn, it's nice to pony up for items that are at least functional.

While the exclusive chronograph is an impressive piece of Swiss engineering, the best part of the equation is that the watch will likely never lose its value, and owners will undoubtedly be rewarded handsomely if they ever try to sell their prized bauble. Funny thing about a watch with 400 parts: when an autommaker over-engineers a part with too many components, it leads to more recalls and lower resale value. In a Swiss watch, a bunch of fancy parts makes it worth 1,000 Casios.

[Source: Auto News (subscription req'd)]

Gallery: 2008 Aston Martin DBS