Baselworld/SIHH

Baselworld 2011: The big PuristSPro report -- Zenith

 

If the hustle and bustle in Zenith’s booth can be taken as indicator for a good order situation, the business must be really good for Zenith. The booth was as active as a bee hive: even the counter, on which normally small meals and drinks are being served, was occupied by three sales agents who were eagerly presenting the collection to interested buyers.

Somewhere in the middle of the activity, we found a small place to have a closer look at this year’s novelties. Among them were a handful of watches that I cannot show for now, since I have been asked to wait with publishing them, until an official release note has been issued by the company. Of course, I respect this request, even when these watches have already been shown here and there in various online communities, including our own.

As a matter of fact, the presentation of a new watch, or a full watch line even, is more than throwing it to the journalists: “Now write something on it!” The various PR departments invest a lot of effort, to perfectly arrange a new product’s launch. Especially Zenith, a company that places emphasis on its history and researches its roots, makes sure that new products are embedded into the own traditions. For the PR department, this means to search the archive for old documents and to write good stories on that base. It would be unfair towards such an effort, to simply post a quickly made picture online, and declare that the presentation of a product.

Consequently, I am subsequently showing only those watches that have been officially presented.

I will start with the highlight of this year’s Zenith collection, the new watch series “Stratos”. This line is the successor of the legendary “Rainbow”-series, which comprised most of the sportive El Primero timepieces, with either rotating diving bezel, or a fixed bezel with tachymeter scale.


The new Stratos line marks the return of sportive watches with tool character. With a diameter of 45.5 mm they are rather large, but the lug design permits a comfortable wear on the wrist. For the time being, there are two different models, both of them have a flyback function added to the base movement:



To be mentioned first is the - unfortunately limited - Stratos “Striking 10th”, featuring the unique mechanism to display the tenths of a second. It lets the central chronograph hand circle the dial once in ten seconds, while in the place of the standard 30 minutes counter at 3 we find a one minute-counter, marking the six ten second-intervals. At 6, finally there is a 60 minutes-counter, so that the measuring capability of the “Striking 10th” is limited to timespans not longer than an hour.


The stainless steel case features a unidirectionally revolving bezel with ceramic inlay.  What struck me as negative on all the Stratos watches, was that this diving bezel was turning extremely stiff. Also, its steel rim does not offer a substantial grip, at least not to a naked hand, without a neoprene glove. I hope that Zenith will give this issue some additional thought and detail work, so that the bezel can be of better use in everyday situations.



The second, unlimited model within the Stratos-series is equipped with the cal. 405, the flyback variant of the standard El Primero. There are several sub-variants of this model: with stainless steel case, a black Alchron case, and a bicolor version, combining black Alchron and pink gold.


This Alchron appears to be a highly mysterious material. Google does not know it, even Google Scholar fails to see it mentioned in any indexed technical book. When I tried to search for a modified term, in this case “Alcron”, without h, the closest result I had, in terms of metallurgy, was a company selling scrap metal; which, I am sure, is not the source of Zenith’s cases. Apart from the Stratos watches, Alchron seems to have never been used before, under that name, at least. Dissolving the term Alchron into its components suggests an alloy, consisting of aluminum, chrome and nickel. Maybe Zenith will some day remove the shroud of secrecy and infirm us about the material’s exact nature.


Nevertheless, all watches of the Stratos series look extremely good, be they in natural steel finish, or in black Alchron.

Aside the sticky diving bezel, the Stratos models share another unpractical feature: the three subcounters on the dial overlap. This is based on an example design from the Sixties. The problem lies in the fact, that the modern watches, unlike their predecessors, massively truncate the important 30 minutes counter, making it impossible to be exactly read any stopped time between 16 and 22 minutes.


I am of course aware that today, expensive mechanical watches are much more a fashion accessory than a really used precision instrument. A company, however, that indefatigably emphasises its long-standing tradition in precision time measurement, should exhibit a bit more sensitivity when designing such a crucial chronograph feature; especially, when the current Captain series chronographs prove that it is possible: there, the overlap compromises the 12 hours counter, which can be easily interpreted by the position of its hand alone. Last, but not least, the Stratos series could profit from a good anti-reflective coating of the crystals.

When Zenith’s former CEO, Thierry Nataf, started to cut open the dials, in order to present the mechanics underneath, long-serving fans of the brand gave an unisonous groan. After all, such optical revealings were generally considered razzle-dazzle, mostly employed in cheaper watches. However, in spite of possibly lacking purism, the holes in the dial were undisputed a big commercial success for Zenith. It is therefore not surprising that the current company leadership did not completely ban all these models from the catalogue.


The updated version of the “Chronomaster Open”, with power reserve indication from the center, is therefore a modification of the existing design: more recent design elements, such as straight hands with luminous mass, and wider, faceted hour markers, were added. The 42 mm wide watch is available in steel and 18k pink gold, and I have to admit that all variants are gorgeous!

The sober Captain series, too, received a few new models, all based on the very thin Elite movement, and all with a timely diameter of 40 mm. the first model, called Dual Time, is based on the well-known Elite movement cal. 682, featuring an independently adjustable 24 hours-hand.


Then we have a version with power reserve indication and small second at 9, based on the cal. 685.


Finally, the most special model combines the indication of a moon phase (at 6) and a two disc big date (at 2) with the small second at 9. the execution of the big date mechanism reminds a bit Glashütte Original’s panorama date, but is not as large. This, however, makes it blend more nicely with the dial design of the Captain Moon Phase. All three models have silver-coated dials with a guilloche center, and are very attractive timepieces.

The closure of this year’s official novelty presentation is marked by two beautiful variants of the elegant Captain series chronograph, the first one being unlimited, with a metallic brown dial and gold-coated markers and hands.


The second one is limited to 1975 pieces and possesses a strikingly blue galvanised dial.


In the next weeks and months, Zenith will publicly present several other models, which have already been shown in Basel. At that time, I will publish the corresponding pictures here in the forum.

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