Grand Seiko unveils its first Spring Drive, the 9R

Nearly 30 years of development to create a movement unlike any other

The long history of Spring Drive can be traced back to the ‘70s and Yoshikazu Akahane, a young, ambitious engineer at Suwa. He had an ambitious goal to create a movement that could deliver the precision of quartz without being dependent on a power source other than the wearer. Essentially, the goal was to make something that could combine the high torque and never ending power source of mechanical watch, with the high precision and stability of quartz. More than two decades later, this was realized in Spring Drive, a new type of watch in which an electro-magnetic regulator controls a mechanical movement.

Though the first Spring Drive watch was released in 1999, it wasn’t until 2004 that a Spring Drive-powered Grand Seiko made its debut, with reference SBGA001 running on Caliber 9R65 released earlier that year. Today, the 9R series remains the driving force of Grand Seiko’s Spring Drive lineup.

Another iconic Grand Seiko timepiece made its way into the world around this time. In 2005, we saw the release of reference SBGA011 (currently SBGA211), otherwise known as the “Snowflake.” With its eye-catching dial patterned after the windswept snow around Shinshu, the Snowflake is undoubtedly one of Grand Seiko’s most renowned watches in the current collection.