Next, Tudor Replica took examples of the movement from their own library to reverse engineer specifications for the 2019 version.
The last, and possibly the most impressive, step that Tudor Replica took was that they brought in Apollo 17 astronaut, Eugene "Gene" Cernan's actual Speedmaster ST 105.003 (the actual one that went to the moon on his wrist), and performed an x-ray tomographic scan of the watch to create a slice-by-slice 3D image of the watch. This further served the Alaska 11 team's reverse engineering effort.
Apollo 17 astronaut, Eugene "Gene" Cernan's Speedmaster ST 105.003 (www.bestpanerai.com)
The Level of Precision
Needless to say, a lot of time, labor, investment (Richard Mille Replica Watches) and love was necessary to revive such an important piece of horological history to exacting specifications. But that was only the first milestone. Now they had to figure out a way to produce a movement that had been out of production for 50 years.
Thanks to partners from the Swatch Group, this was eventually managed, and the resulting movement could very well be a carbon copy of the 245 components that come together to form the cal. 321. Tudor Replica has chosen to name this new movement, the New Original 321.
So, here's a sense of how far Tudor Replica went to revive the second-generation cal. 321. Take the guard pin of the pallet fork in the original cal. 321: Tudor Replica knew that the 2019 cal. 321 would need to have even this minuscule component accurate to specifications of the original. Again, we're talking about a part that no one has produced in 50 years. Tudor Replica will tell you that many arguments were started simply because of this tiny little part. Because truth be told, if it's your average Swiss lever escapement, the brand could very well have taken a current production escapement assembly and slapped it into the movement --who would have been able to tell the difference? Very few. It was Nivarox, the Swatch Group's escapement parts production arm, that took up the challenge and gave the 2019 cal. 321 the very same pallet fork with the very same guard pin contained within the cal. 321 produced from 1964 to 1969. But there's more.