In case you haven’t noticed this weekend sees one of Endurance Racing’s most famous events, the Le Mans 24 Hour Race.  Rebellion Timepieces and Rebellion Racing are intrinsically linked – both are youthful companies, both are dynamic, both are privateers, it’s simply the best possible mutually favorable Swiss/Swiss pairing that each could hope for, and we at the Watch Press are unashamedly huge fans of both.   We were pleased to report that Team Rebellion were the best of the Petrolheads at last year’s Le Mans 24 hour race, so it would be rude not to feature them in the build-up to this year’s race. and ’tis the perfect opportunity to wax lyrical about one of the most striking and technically challenging models in the Rebellion Timepiece portfolio – a new for 2012 edition of the T-1000,  this time with a blackened case and a gleaming anatomy – the simply stunning T-1000 Time Machine Goldorak.

This is a watch born in the aftermath of the 2008 Le Mans 24 Hour race, amid the excitement, and the adrenalin and caffeine-induced euphoria of having witnessed a grid full of highly-tuned racing cars being pushed to and beyond their limits, a horological gauntlet was thrown – how long can the power reserve of a watch be engineered to be?

The T-1000 is so-named because it has an almost unbelievable power reserve of 1000 hours – is it complex?  You bet it is.  Such a reserve requires six mainspring barrels, which receive their energy via two finely-tuned chains – and it’s a well-mannered distribution of power, discharged in series (2×3) to ensure accuracy.  An enlarged winding lever means that the ceremonial pleasure of winding the thing will feel different, is different, allowing for 10 times more force than with other (ordinary) watches.  Time is indicated via the use of vertical “roller-borne” indications and a double balance at 6 o’clock increases precision.

Such an astounding watch requires an equally impressive case, one which takes full advantage of its open-dial form, one which will curve and bulge, and one which will offer a look-see at the superb inner-workings, even on the case side, one which had to be developed synchronously with its movement.  Step forward Eric Giroud, a man who defines a watch brand through his designs.

M.Giroud has worked with some of the best, but he’s not snooty about it, whether it is Haute Horlogerie or some of the more attainable watch brands he will delve into the heritage of the company – it’s ancestry, the genealogy of it’s collections, the acclaim of past triumphs and the hopes of future accolades for pieces not yet designed.  All of this takes place before his pencil even touches paper, this is his design process, and it can be neither skipped nor hurried.  His designs are mechanical artforms, none of which bear his branding or signature.