That the modern El Primero exists at all is a credit to his efforts to preserve the movement against the wishes of the company. One of the watchmakers who developed the El Primero, Charles Vermot, stashed away the technical drawings of the moving along with some of the special tooling to produce it in a sealed off area of the manufacturer. While Zenith was the first to introduce theirs in January of that year, both Seiko and the Chronomatic lot beat them to market.īy 1975 Zenith was eager to shift resources toward the emergence of quartz technology to power their watches, and very nearly ditched the El Primero altogether in the process. Other features of the movement, such as the dry lubrication and instant date changes, made the El Primero the most technically impressive of the three automatic chronographs released in 1969. An impressive feat even by today’s standards. It was the first of its kind in many respects, namely a thin, high frequency, integrated chronograph with automatic winding that could accurately measure down to a tenth of a second. There’s plenty in the way of history attached to the El Primero movement, as you may have heard. While the watch is not without fault, the recreation of this dial creates a pretty big blind spot in recognizing them. I’ll just come right out and say it, I found this dial stunning when I first saw the images.
It’s worth noting that none of these employed the use of any faux aging, rather they’ve been produced as they would have looked when produced in 1969.įollowing additional dial options and a few Limited Editions, finally the A385 was revealed just this year, a little late for the anniversary, but a welcome release nonetheless. The Revival was true to the original in its form, and each additional model has followed suit, including the A384 which also came in 2019.
This watch uses a more traditional round case with the iconic tri-tone overlapping registers dominating the dial.
The Revival series kicked off in 2019 with Zentih celebrating the 50th anniversary of the El Primero, beginning with the A386. The A384 and A386 weren’t short on drama, either, but the A385 hit differently, embracing its era with confidence. The A385 was perhaps the most dramatic of the bunch, boasting a smoked brown gradient dial under pure white registers. The trio pays homage to the original references of the same names first released in 1969, featuring Zenith’s El Primero in the push to release the first automatic chronograph alongside Seiko and Heuer/Buren/Brietling/et al. Prior to the big reveal of their all-new Chronomaster Sport, Zenith quietly revealed the A385, the third reference of the Revival series, joining the A384 and A386.
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