Reviewing The Perrelet Turbine Skeleton

The Perrelet Turbine Skeleton

The Perrelet Turbine Skeleton

Perrelet’s most recognizable family is the Turbine collection. These watches, featuring an oscillating turbine seen through cut-outs in the dial, have become the company’s signature, and now represent the majority of Perrelet’s watches on the market. Since the design relies on an idea of openwork, letting you see into the dial, it’s always felt just a little bit like a skeletonized watch. But Perrelet offered no skeletonized version of the Turbine – until now. At Baselworld this year, Perrelet introduces the Turbine Skeleton in three different case designs.

The Turbine Skeleton has a 44-mm diameter and is 13.3 mm thick. Its case is made of stainless steel with black PVD coating. The dial and accents around the edges of the bezel are in black or in a silver color, which also matches the lugs. The dial tells the hours and minutes with pointed hands covered in Super-LumiNova. The red seconds hand has a cut-out counterweight in the shape of a triangle, echoing the hour and minutes hands.

The key to the design, as always with the Turbine collection, is its propeller-like dial. Ten brushed aluminum turbine spokes extend from the center of the dial to the indexes. As the watch moves, the turbine rotates. Between the spokes of the Turbine Skeleton, you can see straight through to the movement, with its balance partly visible at 12 o’clock.

The movement of the Turbine Skeleton is Perrelet’s P-381. It’s an automatic caliber, beating at 4 Hz, with a 42-hour power reserve. Through the sapphire crystal caseback, you can see the skeletonized rotor with the Perrelet logo on it.

The P-381 is brand new: it’s a skeletonized version of Perrelet’s P-321 movement. Perrelet refers to the P-381 as an “in-house” caliber; it is likely a skeletonized variant of the Soprod A10 movement, which Perrelet has used in the past. (Perrelet and Soprod are sister companies within the Festina Group, so the movement is functionally “in-house.”)

All of the watches are available on a black rubber strap or a composite strap made of polyurethane and calfskin. All straps are black and fit seamlessly into the lugs. They have stainless-steel pin buckles with black coating.

There are three versions of the watch: the black and silver-colored ones shown above, as well as one with a rose-gold bezel. On the rose-gold Turbine Skeleton, the dial is again in black, but the even-numbered hour numerals are applied to a matching rose-gold backing. Hands and the dial’s center are also traced in rose gold.

Perrelet Turbine Skeleton A3038-1 560The Turbine Skeleton will be available after Baselworld. The silver-colored version costs $7,250 on a rubber strap or $7,400 on the composite. The black version is $7,450 (rubber) or $7,600 (composite). With the rose-gold bezel, the Turbine Skeleton costs $9,450 (rubber) or $9,600 (composite).