Before you ask: no, this watch was never made in production and is not available for sale. Again, I’m sorry. This is a watch that requires a bit of background information to understand. IWC has its own training school, as many modern watch brands do. This allows them to train apprentices to do things their way from the beginning, and funnel talented, specially trained watchmakers right into their workshops. It’s a smart system. In the late 1980s, some instructors at the IWC watchmaking school started working on a design for a tourbillon in their spare time, initially as an intellectual exercise. They wanted it to meet a few engineering-driven specifications: it needed to be a flying tourbillon (no top supporting bridge) and it needed to be extremely efficient and lightweight. To achieve these goals, they ended up devising a tourbillon with titanium components and a ball bearing system to keep it spinning smoothly. Eventually a variation on this mechanism would make its way into Il Destriero Scafusia, IWC’s legendary 1993 grand complication.
from Best Watches For Men http://bit.ly/2RizO6p