The Centigraphe has been described by Françoise-Paul Journe as a unique creation: ?In order to create this watch, I had to forget everything ever done in terms of chronographs in order to redesign on a blank sheet of paper.? In 2004 François-Paul Journe created a set of unique Vagabondage watches in celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Antiquorum that were sold at auction in support of the ICM, the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière in Paris (lots 208-210, 24 and 25 April, 2004). The series sold for three times its estimated value, to a prominent collector. Mr. Journe invited the collector to deliver his check personally to Jean Todt, one of the principal founders of the ICM, at the Ferrari test track in Maranello. While in Marellelo, Journe developed a deeper appreciation for the speed and excitement of Ferrari racing cars. He realized that ?there was nothing serious enough in mechanical horology to time today?s racing cars to the 100th of a second.? He set to work and three years later presented the Centigraphe Souverain, giving Jean Todt credit for having inspired the concept. According to our research, in celebration of this momentous collaboration F.P. Journe used a small sample of Ferrari paint to create the special set of Centigraphe 'Rosso Corsa? dials and the ?Fly Yellow? paint (used in the famous Ferrari logo) for the hands. This watch is believed to be one of only four extraordinary examples that were produced.
Jean Todt (born February 25, 1946) is a former executive director of Scuderia Ferrari, the Ferrari company's Formula One constructor. On October 25, 2006, he was appointed as the company's CEO. On March 18, 2008, Todt resigned as CEO and assumed a "special appointment" within the company's racing department. On March 17, 2009, it was announced that Todt had resigned, leaving Ferrari completely.
Jean Todt (wearing the "Rosso Corsa Centrigraphe") with François-Paul Journe at the 2008 Grand Prix d?Horlogerie de Genève where Mr. Journe received the ?Aiguille d?Or? Prize for the Centigraphe Souverain Chronograph watch.
Centigraphe Souverain The hand-wound movement measures elapsed times from one hundredth of a second to 10 minutes on three dials. The flyingseconds dial at 10 o?clock goes around in one second on a scale marked in hundredths of a second, making it theoretically possible to time an object moving at 360,000 km/h, or approximately 1/3000ths of the speed of light. One ingenious feature of the flying-seconds hand is that it can be stopped anywhere along its one-second journey around its dial, even between two 100th-second divisions, enabling an approximate fractional reading. On the dial at 2 o?clock, the hand revolves in 20 seconds around a time scale divided into seconds. The outer tachometer scale shows the speed against the odd seconds, while the inner scale corresponds to the even seconds. The third dial, at 6 o?clock, whose hand revolves in 10 minutes, has a similar tachometer scale with speeds corresponding to 20-second markers. The chronograph is started, stopped and zeroed by a rocker at 2 o?clock in the case band instead of the usual buttons on either side of the crown. This ergonomic solution has been patented. A second patent was granted for the ingenious configuration of the mechanism, which effectively isolates the chronograph from the timekeeping function. As a result, the amplitude of the balance is unaffected when the chronograph is running.