The attic in Le Locle
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ยท
In the mid-1970s, when Zenith's American owners ordered the El Primero production abandoned and its tooling scrapped, a watchmaker named Charles Vermot quietly hid the plans, the presses and the tools in an attic at the Le Locle factory. When the movement was wanted again a decade later, there it was. I have heard the story told at least a dozen times at lunches in the Jura, usually by someone who claims to have been there, and I never tire of it.
The El Primero itself came in 1969, one of the first automatic chronographs, and it ran at 36,000 vibrations an hour, fast enough to time tenths of a second. The A386 of that year, with its three counters in silver, grey and blue, is one of the most attractive chronographs of the period, and the Chronomaster Original is a close reinterpretation of it.
It has been well done. The case is 38 mm, the right size for the era, and 12.9 mm thick, on a leather strap. The dial is white with the three tri-coloured counters, and there is a date, placed between four and five, as on the original. The 3600 movement has 60 hours of reserve, behind an open back, and the central chronograph hand makes a full rotation every ten seconds, so it can measure tenths of a second, which is the modern movement's great trick.
The trick is also my criticism. That hand, spinning round the dial at speed, is a distraction on what should be a calm and handsome face. I find myself wishing it would sit still. The water resistance, 50 m, is modest.
At ten thousand to ten thousand eight hundred dollars, it competes with the Speedmaster '57 and the best of the Carrera Glassbox range, and I think it is the most faithful to its ancestor of the three. For anyone who loves the 1969 watch but would rather not chase one at auction, it is a fine choice, and Vermot would probably approve.