Building the Foundation, Part 4: The In-House Movements of Tudor

This week, we explore the development of manufacture movements at Rolex-owned Tudor Watch Co For much of its existence, Tudor had been regarded by most timepiece aficionados as the little brother of watch-industry giant Rolex, and its watches had mostly reflected that in both their derivative designs and their use of outsourced movements The first movement to emerge from the new Manufacture Tudor, Caliber MT5621, was five years in the making and debuted in the Tudor North Flag model in 2015.

Perhaps most notably, Caliber MT5621 is officially chronometer-certified by COSC Methodically baby-stepping forward, Tudor added a date function to the movement - while dropping the power reserve indicator - to create Caliber MT5612, which debuted in 2017's Heritage Black Bay Steel Many of the contemporary Tudor models that took watch aficionados by storm upon the brand's US.

return, specifically in the Black Bay and Pelagos series, have recently seen their outsourced ETA movements replaced by either Caliber MT5621 or MT5612 For the Pelagos LHD, Tudor modified the MT5612 caliber to include a left-side winding stem When Tudor resolved to introduce its own dedicated chronograph movement, it worked not with Rolex but with Breitling, adopting that brand's Caliber B01 as the base for Tudor Caliber MT5813, which made its auspicious debut in 2017's Heritage Black Bay Chronograph.

Tudor has indicated that more collaborative efforts with Breitling may be on the horizon, meaning venerated Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf's other little watch brand may be stepping even further from Big Brother's shadow in the near future. . Source