By Harlan Chapman-Green
It’s once again that time of the year folks, the time where I say “It’s that time of the year” over and over again. I am, of course, talking about Baselworld. Every year, for those not in the know, watch companies from all over the globe (and outside Richemont) come together in Basel in Switzerland to show off all the new things they’ve been working on over the past year or so. Well, I say new things, but in the past couple of years things have kind of slowed down. It seems like the companies in the industry are waiting for someone to kickstart the watch world back to life with something completely new, rather than just different colour combinations from the power players at Swatch and Rolex.
Enter Zenith, the company that once upon a time made the Defy watch, arguably one of the most controversial watches of the mid-2000s and easily Zenith’s most notable watch purely based on aesthetics. Stepping back into the refined world a little bit, Zenith introduces its new classic heritage chronograph with a refined case and choice of coloured sunburst guilloché dials. The 38mm stainless steel case picks up its predecessor left of and holds sleek and elegant lines from many different angles.
We especially like the dial on this one, which again holds the simplicity and restraint with the upmost priority, leaving the owner with simple rhodium plated hour markers and hands, as well as a simple seconds counter and a 30 minutes subdial at 3 O’clock. There’s also a useful tachymeter scale around the inside of the sleek bezel too. The long slim hands make this watch balance out with some of the groovy colours you can get on the watch such as blue or a sunburst brown option, both of these dials have matching coloured leather straps as well which feature a rubber lining and a stainless steel pin buckle.
Inside the stainless steel case is a thoroughly modern Zenith El Primero 4069 calibre made of 254 components with 35 jewels. The chronograph inside the watch features a column wheel in the place of cams, but as far as we can tell there isn’t an accompanying vertical clutch in this one, though. The movement itself is one of Zenith’s high-frequency calibers and runs at 5Hz (36,000 bph) for over 50 hours without the chronograph running.
The watch is water resistant down to 100 meters (but for obvious reasons we advise you not to test this, at least with the straps on anyway). Prices are expected to be confirmed at a later time. For more info, please visit zenith-watches.com
