Zenith El-Primero

Zenith, while not a household name, is certainly a known name in the world of watches - particularly in collecting circles. The primary reason?

The El Primero.

The movement was a culmination of a years-long research and development process undertaken by Zenith to develop the world’s first automatic chronograph movement. While other brands sought to achieve the same feat — including Heuer (in concert with Breitling and Hamilton) and Seiko — Zenith intended to make the El Primero something entirely unique. Instead of taking an automatic module and merely sandwiching it onto an existing chronograph mechanism, Zenith fully integrated the two; moreover, the movement would be a high-beat calibre, offering significant added accuracy - and it offered a quickset date mechanism, to boot!

Zenith announced the El Primero on January 10, 1969.. This was four years later than Zenith had intended: the brand had begun developing the calibre in 1963, hoping to bring it out for Zenith’s centennial in 1965. Nevertheless, on that winter day in 1969, Zenith proudly displayed a working model of its chronograph.

This particular example from the first generation Reference A386, is the watch that collectors and enthusiasts probably visualize when they hear the name 'El Primero', This early MK1 example features a tidy 38mm stainless steel case with an acrylic crystal, a signed crown, and pump pushers. Inside, it has the archetypal white dial with applied indices, tritium luminous plots and handsets, and the iconic 'tri-colore' overlapping subsidiary register layout with a gray outer minute track and a silver tachymeter scale, and a red center chronograph hand.

Powered by the Calibre 3019 PHC El Primero automatic chronograph movement, this piece comes fitted to a correct stainless steel Gay Freres 'ladder' bracelet with a signed flip-lock clasp dated 1971.

For the collector who desires a chronograph with a fascinating history, breathtaking looks, and proper pedigree, the El Primero absolutely needs to be on your radar.

Georges Favre-Jacot began producing pocket watches in Le Locle at the age of twenty-two. By the turn of the 20th century, Favre-Jacot was producing marine chronometers and chronometer-grade movements, one of which won a chronometry competition in Neuchâtel in 1903. Under the name Zenith, formally established in 1911, Favre-Jacot expanded his production to include wristwatches.
Zenith's chronographs in particular gained a reputation for excellence. At first Zenith used Excelsior Park and Valjoux movements, sharing them with Universal Genève and Movado (with which Zenith would merge for a time in 1969). By the 1960s Zenith acquired ébauche manufacturer Martel and began using their movements exclusively, leading to lauded calibers such as the 146HP and 146DP, which launched in 1969.
1969 was a banner year for horology, as it saw the launch of the first automatic chronograph movement. This was a race between a team consisting of Hamilton, Heuer, Buren, Dubois-Depraz, and Breitling; Seiko; and Zenith. Zenith used the Caliber 146 as a basis for the caliber which the brand would dub "El Primero" — "the first." Of the consortium’s Caliber 11, Seiko’s reference 6139, and the El Primero, only the latter feature a “high-beat” movement for increased accuracy.
Zenith ceased using manually-wound movements in their chronographs after the introduction of the El Primero — however, then the Quartz Crisis of the 1970s hit, and the company was sold. Employees were ordered to destroy or otherwise liquidate their mechanical watchmaking tooling, but incredibly, one daring engineer, Charles Vermot, decided to hide machinery behind a false wall that he built himself in the attic of the company’s manufacture in Le Locle. He told no one about what he was doing — not even his family.

Then, in the 1980s after the company had changed hands once again, he led modern Zenith management to this secret cache of horological wonders, in which the El Primero tooling was hidden. Ebel placed the first modern order for El Primero movements in 1984, but it was Rolex, who ordered thousands of calibers to power their new automatic Daytonas, that saved the firm. Today, the El Primero powers numerous vintage-inspired chronographs as well as the new Chronomaster Sport, a watch aimed as a competitor at — with much irony — the Daytona.

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