Ok... I think I can come up with one that we can dissect. Wether or not it's a flat out lie... we will see how it goes.
Case: Tag Heuer caliber 1887 "claimed" to be in house. But found out to be a Seiko Caliber....
Now from what we know. During the launching of the caliber 1887, Mr.babin (TH CEO at that time) "claimed" that they developed the caliber fully in house and took them 3 years of R&D.
Part of the Q and A during the launching...
"Back in January 2006, we started looking at every mechanical chronograph on the market, and none made the grade in terms of our criteria — high-volume production, unbeatable reliability, easy maintenance and reasonable manufacturing cost. So we set out to make our own, and three years later came up with a beauty.
The turnaround time for a new movement — from first draft to final product — is between 3 and 5 years. The Calibre 1887 is at the front end of the timeframe. But we didn’t rush anything, we took our time, we didn’t make any compromises. When it was completely ready, we launched. As always, the number one priority was to produce the best possible product."
Then the dissecting began and it was revealed that the caliber is indeed from Seiko.
Once it was in the open, Mr.Babin did come out to admit...
His reply at WUS...
"Hi, I'm J.C. Babin the CEO of TAG Heuer, and YES, the new Caliber 1887 is based on a SII (Seiko Instruments Inc.) TC78 platform developped and patented in 1997 (filing) and eversince produced in very limited quantities, apparently for Junghans and Seiko watches in Japan. The caliber we propose and announced last week in London is a major evolution of this platform even though I aknowledge that the overall construction may look similar at first glance. However, the TAG Heuer movement is much different in terms of components, size and eventually performances, not to mention it is manufactured (all its key components including plate, bridges, assortment, cannon pinion, eccentrics etc....) in Switzerland in TAG Heuer workshops of Cornol (Cortech - a company owned by TAG Heuer and already producing TAG Heuer and Zenith cases) and La Chaux-de-Fonds (where we have also the HQs and where we added 30.000 sq feet more last year for movements assembling and other manufacturig projects) as well as from "best in class" partners such as Nivarox.
- Dimensions: it's broader (29.3 mm vs 28 mm) and thinner (7.13 mm vs 7.27 mm)
- Therefore the main plate, bridges - especially the chronograph bridge - and oscillating mass have been significantly modified to allow this evolution
- Its assortment is a swiss asortment specifically developped by Nivarox for TAG Heuer, and allowing to improve further accuracy and shocks resistancy
- New assortment centring of the balance wheel also specifically developped by KIF, a leading swiss expert company in balance wheels centrings
- Change and development of a new swiss engineered cannon pinion to increase time-setting overtime reliability
- Redesign of the fixing of ball bearings of the mass to contribute reducing the thickness
- Adjustements to pass the famous "60 TAG Heuer torture tests" in terms of accuracy, reliability, thermical and physical shocks resistancy, chemical agressions etc....
We have today already 45 TAG Heuer people working full time on that project in Switzerland and work with 21 other suppliers for additional parts, most being swiss. Total investment is several tenth of mio USD.
I would therefore qualify that movement as really in-house and manufactured by TAG Heuer even though, yes, the original IP has been acquired from SII. Please note that the original SII Caliber has always been praised by watches experts.
I hope I answer your questions as well as our fellow Watchuseek lovers !!!
Good evening - JCB"
I remembered Bremont was in a similar predicament by announcing a fully "in house movement" but proven to be a designed and made by La Joux Perret.
These 2 cases are the only blatant "truth distortion" cases that comes to mind.
