This might be the boldest Audemars Piguet yet
The Swiss watch brand just launched another skinny legend
ON THE EVE OF ITS 150TH ANNIVERSARY, Audemars Piguet has unveiled what may be its most audacious Royal Oak yet: the “Jumbo” Extra-Thin Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Chronograph RD#5. Limited to 150 pieces, what some might call a celebratory model happens to also be a fundamental rethink of what a chronograph can be.
Housed in the legendary 39mm “Jumbo” case, the RD#5 is just 8.1mm thick (not its thinnest watch, that honour still belongs to the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin (RD#2) yet it combines a selfwinding flyback chronograph with a flying tourbillon for the first time. Inside beats the new Calibre 8100, a movement developed over five years, featuring a patented rack-and-pinion reset system that delivers instantaneous minute jumps, a retrograde reset in under 0.15 seconds and pushers that mimic the short, crisp tactility of smartphone buttons.
The watch case blends titanium with palladium-rich bulk metallic glass (BMG), prized for its brilliance and resilience, while a platinum peripheral rotor maintains slimness and offers an unobstructed view of the finishing. On the dial, the signature Petite Tapisserie in “Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50” frames snailed counters and luminous white-gold hands, capped with a heritage-inspired AP signature at 12 o’clock.
We haven’t arrived at the RD#5 in isolation. There’s precedence to their daring, making it the latest chapter in Audemars Piguet’s Research and Development (RD) series, a collection of experimental prototypes designed to push horology forward. Since the first RD in 2015, each has solved an entrenched technical challenge: the RD#1 set new benchmarks for acoustic clarity in minute repeaters; the RD#2 of 2018 compressed an entire perpetual calendar onto a single plane to achieve ultra-thinness; and the RD#3 in 2022 introduced a remarkably slim selfwinding flying tourbillon that laid the groundwork for today’s calibre.
Last year’s RD#4 was a culmination of these breakthroughs, packing an unprecedented number of complications into the Code 11.59 Ultra-Complication Universelle. The RD#5 builds directly on that lineage, specifically rethinking how chronographs operate and feel in daily use.
This background matters because the RD collection isn’t about limited runs for the sake of scarcity but rather a proving ground. Technologies born in these prototypes often trickle down into the broader collection, shaping the future of the Royal Oak and beyond. That makes the RD#5 both collectible and instructive: a laboratory piece dressed as a blue-chip classic.
Limited to just 150 pieces, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak “Jumbo” Extra-Thin Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Chronograph RD#5 is a blueprint for the future of high complications in ultra-thin form.
Related:
