Tissot has been a relatively minor player in the growing market of vintage-inspired watches. With only a few recent releases, like the Tissot Heritage 1936 Mechanical and the Tissot Heritage Navigator, the brand is slowly getting more involved in the category, yet remains overshadowed by other Swatch Group brands? vintage-inspired pieces. This year, Tissot worked to change that with the release of the Heritage 1948 Chronograph, an automatic watch inspired by models produced in and around that namesake year. This new watch draws many of its design elements from vintage pieces in Tissot?s collections ? especially those of the 1940s ? many aspects of which remained in the brand?s collections up until the mid-1960s. However, in many other areas, the watch adds a new modernity that differentiates it from a full re-issue of any specific vintage piece.
The watch features a 39.5-mm polished and satin-finished steel case with distinct twisted lugs, flat chronograph pushers, and a straightforward signed crown. On its white dial is a black outer minute ring with eleven silver dots for hour markers (and applied Roman numerals at the 12 o?clock mark) and a date window at the 4:30 position. Deeper on the dial are three subdials for running seconds at 3 o?clock, along with a 12-hour and 30-minute counter at the 6 and 9 o?clock positions, respectively. Indicating the time are two silver leaf-shaped hands for hours and minutes; powering these hands is a Tissot-finished automatic ETA 2894-2...