We Visited The Manufaktur Where Porsche Design Watches Are Made

GRENCHEN, Switzerland – At the foothills of the Jura Mountains, in a town whose name roughly translates to "by the granary," sits a cluster of historic watchmaking maisons. Many of them, from Favre-Leuba to Fortis, have been reimagined from their origins. So too has Porsche Design; the company says it is the sole watch manufacturer belonging to an automotive brand. Weeks into its reopening after an extensive renovation, on a particularly rainy day in April, Rolf Bergmann, CEO of the Porsche Design Timepiece Manufaktur, invited Crown & Caliber in for a tour.

The Porsche design language carries across the range of goods the company produces, and that much is evident upon entry. The Porsche production principle of sequential manufacturing, as they've coined it, and linear storytelling, begin immediately. The opening presentation, given in the briefing room, in which the HVAC was rebuilt to order but the ornamental molding and herringbone parquet remained intact and restored, was titled "Road to Grenchen."

One slide put the manufactory on a map alongside Biel/Bienne, La Chaux-de-Fonds and Saignelégier, under the heading that the region offers an ecosystem of specialized suppliers and skilled professionals. Another was headed "Swiss Made since 1972," with three pillars beneath it: Swiss engineering, Swiss calibers, Swiss manufacturing. A third, "Reasons Why," listed a clear long-term commitment as an independent watch manufacturer, the only automotive brand with its own watch manufactory, and a permanent home in the heart of Switzerland's historic watchmaking region. A fourth put the United States at 40 percent of sales and Germany at 25 percent.

The building was erected in 1955 as the home of Eterna. In 1995 it was bought by F. A. P. Beteiligungen GmbH, a company that Professor Ferdinand Alexander Porsche and his son were involved in. Between 1998 and 2014, Porsche Design watches were made inside it under license from Eterna. Then Porsche Design moved production to Solothurn, and the building emptied out. The company bought the still-vacant building in the spring of 2024, spent 18 months on the renovation, and moved in.

Bergmann mentioned the proximity to Breitling, which has its headquarters in town, on a street named for Léon Breitling. Fortis continues to work out of the building Walter Vogt put up in the town in 1912. And ETA, the largest maker of Swiss watch movements and the supplier much of the industry cannot function without, got its start here.

After the presentation, we walked through the building, which houses offices, to the airlock, a kind of lab coat locker room, where street clothes are exchanged for a branded lab coat and clean shoes. 

While the facility covers roughly 39,000 square feet and currently holds ten watchmaking stations, assembly happens in an ISO 7 cleanroom with benches held to ISO 5. The ventilation system turns the air over five times an hour and holds humidity between 40 and 50 percent, with overpressure to keep everything else out. A lighting system simulates constant daylight through the whole building, supplemented by adjustable LEDs at each bench so a watchmaker can catch a dust particle or a surface flaw at any hour of any season. Parts reach the cleanroom on a gravity-fed conveyor that connects it to the logistics area without a second door.

Sound familiar? Because it's the same logic used in an assembly line, just substitute watches for cars. Bergmann described the principle on the tour as "not more, but better." 

Where the more comes in is downstairs. The ground floor is given over to an exhibition tracing Porsche Design timepieces back to 1972, alongside a configuration space called the Fitting Lounge where a customer can specify a watch, color match it to a car, and later collect it. There’s an imported Italian espresso machine, the famous Porsche-shaped butter and cookies (to be eaten separately), and an iPad where collectors and clients can mix-and-match, playing with a multitude of options.

What’s more, nearly every Porsche color, current or vintage, is stored upstairs and tracked, should a customer need a replacement. There’s also specific vehicles paired to unique watches that too are tracked. 

Configuration, production and handover now happen under one roof for the first time. Customers can drive a Porsche, park it in front of the building (which has a neon red accent running atop it that matches the rear of a Porsche) and pick up their finished watch. Guided tours, long a fixture at Porsche's car plants, are now offered here too.

Not everything about the building is new. The original vault doors from 1956 were refurbished with their appearance intact. A staircase handrail is upholstered in the carmine red leather Porsche uses in its car interiors. On the roof, when the mist and the rain aren't visiting, 211 solar panels rated at 134 kW peak generate up to 62 percent of what the building consumes, and the taps run cold by default.

Upon our exit, a series of 911s, waxed to perfection so that the water droplets merely skate across the surface rather than clinging to it, greeted us.