600p

Piaget has a long history with ultra-thin mechanical watch movements. They pride themselves on having records such as the thinnest manually wound movement, as well as the thinnest automatic movement. Now they have created the thinnest manually wound movement with a tourbillon escapement. Considered to be very complex and hard to make, tourbillons aren't usually attempted in thin variants.

Piaget has succeeded in making its Caliber 600P movement just 3.5mm thick - which includes skeletonized bridges and a flying tourbillon. The movement is seen here in mostly 18k rose gold with diamonds set into much of the mainplate. The movement is 22.4mm wide by 28.64mm tall, has a power reserve of 40 hours, and looks to be made to fit in rectangle Piaget Emperador style watch cases. You can click "READ MORE" below to see a new Piaget promotional video that showcases the watch as well as the making of the movement.

Ultra-thin tourbillon movements are destined to remain highly niche, even more so that regular tourbillon, but it makes sense for Piaget to hold the honor (at this time) of making the thinnest one around. The 600P is an horological achievement under Piaget's belts, but in 2011 the Swiss brand will be setting another record with a tourbillon movement.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.