The Zenith El Primero A386 Revival was released last year in three 18k gold iterations: white, rose, and yellow. Variations of this movement would eventually power, among many others, the Rolex Daytona. This caliber was so well engineered, in fact, that it took on a life of its own beyond the El Primero.
Still the El Primero’s impressive frequency, fully integrated chronograph movement, and slim case made it stand out from the crowd. Still, by the time the watch was finally released for sale in the fall of 1969, the El Primero -or “the first”- was something of a misnomer competitors had already beaten Zenith to the marketplace a few months prior. El Primero was famously the first company to announce that they had accomplished the feat, stunning their big-name competitors. And Zenith wasn’t the only manufacture trying to create the first automatic chronograph, either Seiko, as well as the Chronomatic Group (a partnership between Heuer-Léonidas, Breitling, Hamilton-Büren and Dubois-Dépraz), raced to develop a working prototype.
The challenge proved so great, in fact, that Zenith missed its own deadline for completing the watch by four years. The time-keeping function would be actuated by a column wheel, which would make it both better quality and harder to produce than cam actuated chronographs. Add to this a date window and you have a truly complicated watch, in every sense of the word. On top of this, the chronograph would be fully integrated into the watch movement, rather than simply being mounted atop a base movement. The El Primero A386 was the result of an extraordinary challenge Zenith set for itself back in 1962 to celebrate the company’s upcoming 100 th anniversary: create an unprecedented self-winding chronograph that measured to 1/10 th of a second, making it the most accurate chronograph wristwatch in the world. The Zenith El Primero and the race for an automatic chronograph We’re lucky enough to have one of the original A386 models within our doors, so we took advantage of the opportunity to showcase the duo side by side. The Revival was unveiled as a limited edition in white gold, pink gold, and yellow gold, limited to 50 pieces per metal with an MSRP of $19,200. This high beat rate means the escapement oscillates more rapidly, subdividing each second into more precise increments, resulting in a more accurate watch. Like the original, The Zenith El Primero Revival is an automatic chronograph with a 5 Hz (36,000 vibrations per hour) escapement. Released in 2019 to mark the historic watch’s 50 th birthday, the A386 Revival is exactly what you want in a reissue it’s a painstakingly-faithful recreation with a few subtle 21 st century updates. It’s a limited edition chronograph with some serious horsepower under the hood, and a legendary reputation to go along with it-the Zenith El Primero A386 Revival 50 th Anniversary Limited Edition.
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