Prior to the Quartz Crisis that ravaged the Swiss watch industry in the 1970s and ’80s, Oris had an extensive history of in-house movement production. In fact, between the year of its founding and 1981, the year in which the company?s management decided to cease producing its own movements in favor of outsourcing ébauches from ETA and later Sellita, Oris had developed a total of 229 in-house calibers. These included historically significant examples like Caliber 652 in 1968, which featured the first pin-lever escapement movement to be chronometer-certified by the Neuchatel Observatory, and 1970?s Caliber 725, when the brand released its first chronograph. From 1982 onward, Oris would place its focus on the less-intensive, and less costly, process of producing in-house modules for the base movements it acquired from its Swiss suppliers. Oris Big Crown ProPilot X Caliber 115
As Oris was heading into its centennial in 2004, however, its current ownership and management ? headed by executive chairman Ulrich W. Herzog, one of two Oris employees who?d orchestrated the buyout from the nascent Swatch Group back in 1982 that made Oris an independent company ? decided it was high time to plunge back into developing movements in-house from the ground up. To this end, Oris watchmakers and designers teamed with Switzerland?s L?École Technique Le Locle to design and produce a mechanical movement that would include a high level of functionality but would also be cased in watches ...