Zenith
Celebrates
EL PRIMERO’S 50TH
BY MICHAEL THOMPSON
WE’RE ABOUT HALF WAY THROUGH EL PRIMERO’S
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY YEAR, AND ALREADY ZENITH
HAS LAUNCHED A HOST OF COMMEMORATIVE WATCHES
TO HONOR ITS LEGENDARY HIGH-SPEED AUTOMATIC
CHRONOGRAPH. WHILE WE SUSPECT ZENITH HAS MUCH
MORE TO SAY A (AND DEBUT) ON THE TOPIC, LET’S TAKE
A LOOK AT WHAT THE LE LOCLE-BASE MANUFACTURER
HAS OFFERED IN CELEBRATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY
SINCE JANUARY.
THE YEAR BEGAN AS ZENITH SHOWED A WIDE-
RANGING SET OF FULL-COLLECTION DEBUTS. BUT ONE
PARTICULARLY AUSPICIOUS THREE-PRONGED LAUNCH
WAS SPECIFICALLY MEANT TO BOTH ENHANCE AND
PROPEL THE EL PRIMERO LEGACY: A BOXED SET OF
THREE EL PRIMERO CHRONOGRAPHS.
All three watches in the boxed anniversary set are linked not only by
their El Primero roots, but also by their tri-color subdial counters, a nod to
Zenith’s best-known El Primero dial treatment. Included in the set is a reissue
faithful to the first El Primero model of 1969, a Chronomaster El Primero with
a newly optimized movement and a Defy El Primero 21 with its 1/100th of a
second timing capability.
In the boxed trio, Zenith has updated the Chronomaster El Primero
to enhance its reliability and precision. The most obvious results of the
enhancement are the integration of a stop-seconds device for more precise
setting of the time, and power reserve bolstered to sixty hours. This new
Chronomaster is also now a bit sportier, with a 42mm steel case topped by a
black ceramic bezel, a star-shaped oscillating weight and a rubber strap with
contrasting stitching.
The Defy El Primero 21 in the set is a 44mm titanium-cased model with
A host of new and ‘revival’
watches commemorate the
1969 birth of the famed 36,000
vph automatic caliber.
Zenith’s ultra-high-speed movement oscillating at a frequency of 360,000
vibrations per hour (50 Hz), ten times higher than its predecessor. With its
one-revolution-per-second hand, it displays one hundredth of a second on
a scale from 1 to 100. It’s movement features two escapements, one for the
time and the other for the chronograph.
THE FOURTH CUSHION
The trio thus includes vintage, classic and modern versions of the El Primero.
An empty fourth cushion teases collectors as the site for a future El Primero
watch, very likely to be a very high frequency model (1/1000th of a second)
according to Zenith.
All three are set into a box adorned with the El Primero anniversary
logo. Its satin-brushed gray lid (with built-in touch screen) opens to reveal
a reproduction of a miniature watchmaker’s workbench, complete with an
adjustable lighting system, magnifying glass and screwdriver.
In the box Zenith has also placed a special invitation to visit Le Locle.
The invitation is an actual die of the chronograph’s coupling-wheel bridge.
The owner is asked to visit the Manufacture in Le Locle and to hand-stamp
two coupling-wheel bridges. One will leave with the owner and the other
(engraved with the owner’s name) will be placed on the entrance wall of a
very special attic. The attic is where Charles Vermot, the Zenith watchmaker
who, in the midst of the quartz crisis in the early 1980s, secretly stored El
Primero tools and dies, thus saving the movement – and possibly even Zenith
itself – from oblivion (see accompanying story).
AT BASELWORLD
Just a few months after Zenith announced the El Primero boxed set, the
watchmaker debuted another set of watches in celebration of El Primero:
the Defy El Primero 21 Carbon ($17,800), the Defy El Primero Double
Tourbillon ($141,000) and three gold-cased El Primero A386 Revival watches
SUMMER 2019 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | 53