Several years ago, I had the pleasure of touring the Zenith manufacture in Le Locle, Switzerland, and afterward had the chance to speak with representatives of the brand. While the conversation was largely off the record, the gist of it was about the challenge that a brand like Zenith faces from a marketing standpoint in today?s crowded, competitive luxury watch market. Whereas many brands in its category are known for a flagship watch model ? Omega for the Speedmaster, Audemars Piguet for the Royal Oak, Rolex for the Submariner, the Daytona ? well, name just about any Rolex model ? Zenith?s fame comes chiefly not from a model per se but from a movement ? the legendary El Primero. The high-frequency chronograph caliber famously burst on the scene in 1969 ? the seminal year of the Great Automatic Chronograph Race, about which much ink and pixels have already been spilled. Its odyssey is now a part of watchmaking lore: famously tucked away in an attic by a quietly insubordinate Zenith employee named Charles Vermot and thus rescued from its corporate-ordered extinction as the 1970s quartz crisis wreaked havoc on the Swiss watch industry and threatened to render such micro-mechanical wonders obsolete.
In the modern, post-mechanical-watch-renaissance era, Zenith has understandably focused on its prize pony, using the El Primero ? in some cases, modifying and even improving upon it ? in a wide range of timepieces. For the Chronomaster El Primero Full Open ? the watch that I had ...