A385 with the striking tri-colour dial of the A386, resulting in a unique and aesthetically pleasing 70’s sports chronograph. A3817 was released in 1971 and it combined the sportier steel tonneau-shaped case of earliest El Primero ref. The A386, the A385 the basis for the A3817 and the A384. While there is a debate on who was first, there’s no doubt that Zenith were first to announce the El Primero, with three different references.
However, there were a couple of silent watch manufactures working on this advance too: in the Far East was Seiko, who were busy working on their own version and then there was the company from Le Locle Zenith. There were of course a few companies that shared an interest in claiming this technological breakthrough: Heuer/Buren-Hamilton/Breitling. During the early 1960s there was a race on to see who could create the world’s first self-winding (automatic) chronograph. The El Primero is a legend within its own right but there is a much debated story behind it.
It was only as recently as the 1960s that there was a push to invent an automatic chronograph and while Zenith can be considered the first, it wasn’t quite that straight forward. I’ve previously mentioned before that chronograph watches have been around since the 19 th century, but it wasn’t that long ago that automatic chronographs were introduced. Zenith has been on a bit of a roll lately with their re-editions and not too long ago they introduced one of their latest re-edition timepieces and luckily for us, we were able to get our hands on an example to get up close and personal to see if this recreated El Primero was all we expected it to be? As you know, the Zenith El Primero is quite simply one of the most important chronographs in watchmaking history.
0 kommentar(er)
