Laurent Ferrier, the watchmaker with three careers, from Patek Philippe to Le Mans driver
Buffy AcaciaLife isn’t about scoring points or ticking boxes, but if it was, Laurent Ferrier would certainly be on the leaderboard. Most people would consider a single, long career with a legendary company as a success, especially if you wound up leading its product development department. Well, Laurent Ferrier juggled a 37-year stay at Patek Philippe at the same time as a professional endurance racing career, rising up through the ranks before starting his own brand at a retirement age. Now, it’s a high watchmaking powerhouse in its own right.
Watchmaking clearly runs in Ferrier blood, as both Laurent’s father and grandfather were watchmakers. Having been born in Neuchâtel, the birthplace of Abraham-Louis Breguet, there must have been something in the air. While Laurent Ferrier’s father built high-complication watches in a store below the family apartment, Laurent was encouraged to handle them from a young age, and gradually began to understand their workings.
View this post on Instagram
He enrolled in the École d’Horlogerie de Genève, which this year celebrates its 200th anniversary, and is known as one of the best Swiss watchmaking schools. Impressive graduates include Roger Dubuis, Christophe Claret, Franck Muller, and Rexhep Rexhepi. Many of its alumni end up working at Rolex, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet, and of course, Patek Philippe. Patek usually gets its pick of the crop, and having excelled in his studies and the production of his Montre d’École, Laurent Ferrier was recruited in 1968.
Patek or passion
Ferrier’s first major project was actually in service of a digital screen quartz watch, but that was scrapped as Patek Philippe decided to stick with analogue displays during the height of the quartz crisis. It soon became clear that traditional watchmaking was still a viable avenue, especially in the luxury sector where quartz just couldn’t compete on exclusivity, ingenuity, and built quality. Ferrier experienced several different departments throughout the next few years at Patek Philippe, but there was another passion pulling at him. Watchmaking and motorsport are intrinsically linked for plenty of financial and branding reasons, but there’s also a philosophical link with the engineering and performance side of things. Ferrier left watchmaking behind entirely to pursue his dream of racing, but shortly returned to Patek with an arrangement to spend four days in the office, and Fridays at the racetrack.
The racing career of Laurent Ferrier really kicked off in 1974, and it was in his final race of that year when he teamed up with François Sérvanin. Although their car did not end up arriving at the Brands Hatch 1,000km, a friendship had been forged. Their next race together was at the Nürburgring 1,000km in 1975 driving a Lola T294, and they finished 17th out of 29 finishers. Endurance racing called to Ferrier the most, and the obsession with sustained perfection really echoed the ideals of wristwatch performance. He did enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975, but he wouldn’t successfully finish in the legendary race until 1978. There, along with two co-drivers, he had a first place finish in the Group 6 Sports 2L category, 11th overall. To go from not finishing Le Mans in six attempts to a class victory in the 7th would have been a rollercoaster of emotions.
1979 was the year of Laurent Ferrier’s best overall result, and it happened while teamed up with François Sérvanin once more. Starting from 20th on the grid, Laurent Ferrier, François Sérvanin, and François Trisconi made their way up to a 3rd place overall finish in the Porsche 935/77A of Porsche Kremer Racing. The 24 Hours of Le Mans don’t host a podium for the overall winners, but if they had, Ferrier and Sérvanin would have shared a stage with the near-mythical Paul Newman who had placed 2nd overall, and 1st in the IMSA GTX class alongside Dick Barbour and Rolf Stommelen.
Using some of his prize money, Ferrier bought Sérvanin a Patek Philippe Nautilus, which he had actually had a part in bringing to life from Gérald Genta’s drawings. It was around this time that the pair started dreaming of a watch brand of their own. However, for the time being, the dreams remained dreams. Ferrier rose up the ranks of Patek Philippe, eventually heading up the product development department and taking on a huge amount of responsibility for the brand. Meanwhile, Sérvanin was involved in auto manufacturing and founded the Auverland company that made off-road vehicles, specialising in military and defence areas.
In 2005 it purchased Panhard, one of the earliest automobile makers and a key manufacturer during the First World War, turning Auverland (somewhat interchangeably known as Panhard General Defence) into one of the biggest armoured vehicle producers in Europe. In 2009, Sérvanin and Ferrier, now in their 60s, decided to make their dream come true before it was too late. Ferrier resigned and forfeited all retirement benefits just three years short of the 40-year mark with Patek Philippe, and Sérvanin sold Panhard to Renault Trucks Defence for a €65.5M deal that was finalised in 2012.
Turning dreams into reality
Considering how close Ferrier and Sérvanin had become over their decades of friendship, the creation of the Laurent Ferrier brand was practically a family company, especially since Laurent had brought his son Christopher along for the ride. Having previously worked at La Fabrique du Temps, Christopher Ferrier was carrying on the Ferrier tradition with a particular interest in mechanical movements. With Laurent ideating and designing, Christopher behind the movements, and François Sérvanin providing funding and business nous, the brand’s leadership was impeccable. Everything kicked off with it’s first watch in 2010 — the Laurent Ferrier Galet Classic Tourbillon Double Spiral.
Laurent Ferrier can’t quite take full credit for the Galet Classic Tourbillon Double Spiral, as the movement was co-produced with Enrico Barbasini and Michel Navas who now run La Fabrique du Temps under LVMH, but the calibre FBN 916.01 was an incredible debut. It won Best New Men’s Watch at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève awards and for good reason. Not only was the smooth, pebble-like case and the traditionally appointed dial bravely defiant of all the hyper-modern watches being released at the time, but the movement actually reclaimed the tourbillon as a useful complication in wristwatches, rather than just a status symbol. Two springs were used in the tourbillon’s balance wheel in opposite directions, so that the differences between them were instantly cancelled out. Unlike the original Breguet tourbillon which only aided vertically-stored pocket watches, this one actually improved the performance of a wristwatch in any orientation.
2011 saw Laurent Ferrier’s first automatic movement adorned with a micro-rotor, partly in an effort to be more accessible. Compared to the Classic Tourbillon Double Spiral’s 2010 RRP of CHF 185,000, the CHF 44,000 for the Galet Micro-Rotor was in a slightly more attainable price range. The calibre FNB 229.01 utilised an unusual escapement called the Double Direct-Impulse Escapement, with two escape wheels applying the mainspring’s power to both sides of the balance wheel’s swing. This minimises the power difference between ticks, improving overall efficiency and accuracy. It also makes up for some of the limitations which micro-rotors usually bring, allowing for a 72-hour power reserve, and of course the beautiful view of the movement through a sapphire caseback.
Several evolutions occurred in the following years, but the release of the Galet Square Micro-Rotor in 2015 was a big shake-up. Not only was the cushion case infinitely sportier than the previous models inspired by river-worn pebbles, but it was also the first Laurent Ferrier watch to be released in stainless steel. It still cost CHF 35,000, but clearly the 1970s tool watches of Ferrier’s racing days were calling to him. It also happened to win Best Horological Revelation at the GPHG awards, signalling how much it shocked the watchmaking world upon its Baselworld release.
The company’s next big GPHG award came in 2018 with the École Annual Calendar winning Best Men’s Complication, notable for its entirely in-house production, ease of setting despite the complications, and its departure from the then-familiar Laurent Ferrier signature style.
If we were to go into detail about every significant Laurent Ferrier release, this article would be at least ten times as long. Most recently, Laurent Ferrier’s attention-grabbing watch has been the Sport Auto. The heyday of 1970s racing watches has finally come back into fashion, and there’s nobody better to release an homage to that era than Laurent Ferrier. The Sport Auto 40 in particular is specifically dedicated to the Porsche 935/77A #40 that Ferrier and Sérvanin raced back in 1979, complete with the spearmint green seen of the car’s livery. Being an integrated-bracelet sports watch in stainless steel, it also serves to honour the Patek Philippe Aquanaut that Ferrier was instrumental in creating back in 1997. The “regular” Laurent Ferrier Sport Auto in gorgeous blue fumé is priced at CHF 48,000, making it a phenomenal alternative to those big-name brands with no sacrifice in quality.
Despite the fact that the brand is only a teenager, Laurent Ferrier proved itself as one to keep track of ever since its inception. It’s still quite a small operation with an annual production of approximately 300 watches, but the momentum it keeps between releases is staggering. Even though technologies like the natural or Double Direct-Impulse Escapement, the Tourbillon Double Spiral and Laurent Ferrier’s large, hand-polished horizontal click spring pop up regularly, the company is always evolving its releases in ways that feel both on-trend and yet fresh. For a last-ditch effort tacked on to an already-stellar career, Laurent Ferrier has done incredible things.