This Laurent Ferrier Tourbillon Grand Sport (“Grand Sport Tourbillon,” as I call it) is an expensive but beautiful and comfortable “stealth wealth” luxury timepiece. It is easy to deride or dismiss this watch if you haven’t gotten to know it and the brand around it. You can certainly go your entire watch-collecting career without ever wearing or seeing this watch, but for those who do, I think they will agree they stumbled onto something special. Let me say outright that the Laurent Ferrier Grand Sport Tourbillon Pursuit is a great watch, but its concept ensures that it is not meant for everyone. It is delightfully comfortable on the wrist, but I can understand how some people might not like its looks. After wearing it for a while, I was sold on its chic, handsome good looks and smooth-to-the-touch wearing experience. In pictures or from afar, I can see how some people might say, “So, Laurent Ferrier just wanted an integrated bracelet watch as well?” I can also see how many people might not understand the purpose of paying for a tourbillon without the ability to view that tourbillon all the time. Laurent Ferrier is decidedly old-school about its presentation of tourbillons — which is never gimmicky but only via the movement side of the watch on the rear. These are more intellectual (or fiscal) hurdles rather than anything else.
There is very little about the Laurent Ferrier Grand Sport Tourbillon Pursuit timepiece that doesn’t have a story or purpose behind the decision. This watch tells stories about what is important to the Laurent Ferrier brand and Laurent Ferrier, the man. For over 30 years, he worked as a watchmaker at Patek Philippe. That was his career immediately before starting Laurent Ferrier, the eponymous watch company. When he was younger, he was also a race car driver and drove Le Mans. (This was in the 1970s, I believe.) The Grand Sport collection is a sports-style timepiece inspired by this time in his life. It echoes the large, cushion-style cases of that era but in a very elegant and refined package. The Grand Sport collection includes both this larger tourbillon-based model and a micro-rotor automatic movement-based model that has a slightly smaller case (which is just called the “Sport Auto”). So, yes, this is Laurent Ferrier’s entrant into the elegant jewelry-style men’s sports watch category, but at least it doesn’t have an arbitrary design, and it does well represent the man behind the company.
As of writing, the Laurent Ferrier Tourbillon Grand Sport watch is still exceedingly rare. The Laurent Ferrier Grand Sport case was introduced in 2019, followed by the integrated bracelet for the Laurent Ferrier Tourbillon Grand Sport in 2020. In 2023, we wrote about this salmon-dialed Laurent Ferrier Tourbillon Grand Sport Pursuit watch. None of the watches appear to be strictly limited editions, but I also seem to recall that Laurent Ferrier said something like only 15 pieces per style would be produced. All but one of the models appear to have titanium cases, but for 50,000 Swiss Francs more, Laurent Ferrier offers at least one current version of an all-gold Tourbillon Grand Sport watch.
The Grand Sport case is one I will miss wearing. It really doesn’t look all that special in marketing images, but on the wrist, the organic, smooth lines of this watch sell themselves quickly. Laurent Ferrier himself hates sharp watches. His first watch was called the Galet (“Pebble”) because, to him, it was supposed to feel that smooth when running your fingers over it. Since then, the company has consistently created very smooth watches that aren’t sharp or harsh in any way. The same is true with the Grand Sport case, even though it has a bracelet and a lot of complex surfaces. Nevertheless, the design and polishes are all made to ensure that there is nothing your fingers (or clothing) will not feel comfortable running along — an impressive feat.
Recall that even though the Grand Sport case is 44mm wide and 13.4mm thick, it is rather lightweight because of the grade 5 titanium construction. The case also has 100 meters of water resistance and is sandwiched with two domed and AR-coated sapphire crystals. This elegant but larger-than-life case design is meant to evoke the swinging 1970s and the swoopy cars of its era. Attached to the case is a simple, but very well-finished three-link titanium bracelet. I have no complaints about it and found it very comfortable, even if the whole construction felt a little bit chunkier than it needed to be. I will say that the butterfly deployant strap (even though it functions totally fine and is in matching titanium) is rather generic and feels a bit out of place on such an expensive watch.
I want to spend a moment talking about the surface finishing on this grade 5 titanium Laurent Ferrier watch. I felt like it should have been more scratched up than it was, but it was in really good condition even though it was not brand new. When finished by machines, titanium is very sensitive to small scratches and swirls. This watch, however, seems to have slightly deeper polishes and brushing, and I suspect that makes the watch more resistant to signs of wear. My guess is that Laurent Ferrier has the Grand Sport case and bracelet carefully polished by hand to achieve this effect. That probably makes this process available only for very high-end timepieces. In any event, I was impressed by the quality and beauty of the titanium surface finishing on the Tourbillon Grand Sport, which, in my opinion, is worlds away from what you’d find in a less expensive machine-finished titanium case or bracelet.
Laurent Ferrier’s first watch for his brand was the Galet Classic Double Spiral Tourbillon, which more or less had the same movement as this Tourbillon Grand Sport Pursuit. There were two notable things about his tourbillon movement. One was that the system employed a regulation system with two balance springs on a single tourbillon cage-mounted balance wheel (to reduce rate result errors from things like vibration and gravity). The second was that the tourbillon was designed to be visible through the rear of the watch, with the rest of the movement. Patek Philippe and A. Lange & Sohne started out making tourbillon movement-based wristwatches in this manner, but otherwise, the practice is very rare. Most watches with tourbillons as part of the movements are typically designed to be visible in open windows on the dial side of the watch. Tourbillons are pretty to watch moving and help suggest that the timepiece is expensive. The idea of paying for something expensive without being overtly able to show off that wealth is simply strange to some consumers. For that reason, we use the terms “stealth wealth” or “IYKYK (if you know you know)” to describe the more discreet practice of wearing expensive watches that don’t immediately look like expensive watches. Call it what you will, but you get the idea. The Laurent Ferrier Tourbillon Grand Sport Pursuit (and its sister models) are ideal for when you want something really nice, that really only you and a few fellow nerds know is nice.
The movement inside the watch is built by Laurent Ferrier but was originally engineered in collaboration with La Fabrique du Temps. Since then the movement specialist firm was acquired by LVMH and operates under the watch division at Louis Vuitton. Today, La Fabrique du Temps products Louis Vuitton, Daniel Roth, and Gerald Genta watches. Much of the same team also designed the Laurent Ferrier caliber LF619.01 manually wound mechanical movement. In this “Sport” form, the movement has darker gray anthracite-colored bridges. It operates at 3Hz with 80 hours of power reserve. The dial only indicates the time with a subsidiary seconds dial. The finishing and movement architecture are very attractive. It is very well-decorated and has proven to be a reliable and robust system. All I could have asked for is a movement-side mounted power reserve indicator, but no watch is perfect. The caliber LF619.01 movement is made up of 188 parts.
Laurent Ferrier calls the pink-hued dial “salmon,” but to me, it is pink copper, and whatever you call it, the color is pretty. The Grand Sport’s applied hour markers and hands are in a graceful leaf shape, filled with luminant, and made from 18k white gold. The dial includes a discreet hint about the movement with the text “Tourbillon Grand Sport,” which doesn’t actually bother me. The dial is otherwise very legible, and classicly attractive with its symmetry, attractive geometry, and simplicity.
The Laurent Ferrier Tourbillon Grand Sport is not a youthful watch but rather a mature watch. This is a timepiece that has a shape and themes which have been time-tested. It doesn’t try to succeed at new tricks so much as it tries to master time-honored ones. The proof is in the pudding, insofar that looking at, wearing, and enjoying the Tourbillon Grand Sport is easy to do. In a world of mega-luxury watches trying to outdo each other for pomp and prestige, the Tourbillon Grand Sport sits proudly and confidently in the corner looking cool and collected. This is a watch that has less to prove and more to share. It is a product conceived by a lifelong devotee of horology and precision mechanics, in addition to good taste. Of course, he would come up with something beautiful and impressive. And that’s just what Laurent Ferrier did with his “sport watch.” Whether or not the Grand Sport reminds you of graceful vehicles on a track in the 1970s, it will be a good high-end wristwatch companion. You might even get to take it off every once in a while and show off the hidden tourbillon. Price for the reference LCF044.02.T1.RN1 Laurent Ferrier Grand Sport Tourbillon Pursuit watch is 175,000 Swiss Francs. Learn more at the Laurent Ferrier website.
