
Nineteen sixtynine was a year of remarkable "firsts": man took his first steps on the moon; the Concorde and Boeing 747 made their maiden flights; and a man lived three days with a man made heart. So when we read of an event in 1969 confirming "national supremacy" or the achievement of an "unattainable dream," which of these firsts comes to mind? When we read of engineers "wild with excitement" or celebrating a "revolution," do we visualize an aircraft, a spacecraft or a machine powering life itself?
Well, no . . . this is a watch magazine ...so we must be reading about something different. Indeed, the phenomenon described by these accolades, and which we will explore in this series, is something entirely different. We're referring to the introduction of the world's first automatic chronograph, of course.
Many think of the 1960s as the golden age of motor racing. The cars were fast; die tracks were wide open; the finishes were close; the drivers were heroic, challenging death as they challenged each other.
As much as anything, racing in the 1960s was characterized by the rivalries between teams and between drivers. Porsche, Ferrari and Ford at Le Mans; Porsche versus McLaren in CanAm; the Camaros and Mustangs on the Trans-Am circuit; and Lotus and Ferrari in Formula One. There were the heroic drivers—Andretti, Brabham, Clark, Donahue, Foyt, Gurney, Hill, Hulme and McLaren, among many others. While the teams and cars battled throughout the decade, many of the rivalries between the drivers were destined to last for only a short while.
Study the starting grids in the early 1960s and you realize how few of the leading drivers were still racing by the end of the decade. Many of the leading drivers were killed; others realized that the odds had turned against their survival and took early retirement from what was called the "cruel sport."
Just as the 1960s might be thought of as the golden age of competition in motor racing, this was a memorable decade for chronographs and the other "tool" watches.
Specialized watches were worn by drivers and their crews when they went racing; by pilots and in-ternational travelers as they crossed the time zones; by divers on underwater adventures; and by the explorers, as they climbed the tallest peaks and traveled to the poles.
The "Big Three" of chronographs—
Omega,
Breitling and
Heuer competed intensely with each other, but each brand also established a distinctive position in the market. Omega introduced the Speedmaster in 1957; five years later astronaut Wally Schirra wore one in space. By the end of the decade, the "Speedy" was worn on the moon. Breitling proclaimed that it was the world's leading manufacturer of precision instruments for aviation, with the Navitimer becoming a part of the pilot's uniform and the Cosmonaute becoming the first chronograph worn into space.
Heuer was the most dominant brand for the automotive crowd, offering chronographs for the racers, dashboard instruments for the navigators, stopwatches for the crews, and hand held, split second chronographs for the race officials.
Indeed, tool watches seemed to be coming into their own in the early 1960s, with the leading brands developing purpose built watches and chronographs for an increasingly wide variety of demanding applications.
THE CHALLENGE
While the Swiss watch companies continued to develop their chronographs and other specialized watches, at the beginning of the 1960s they faced significant challenges. Sales of Swiss chronographs were declining from year to year, the legendary Valjoux and Venus movements that powered leading Swiss chronographs were growing old, and most notably automatic (self-winding) watches were enjoying increased popularity and sales.
Automatic watches thrived throughout the 1950s, as Swiss manufacturers introduced dozens of new calibers. Winding systems included full rotors mounted to the back of movements, "bumper" rotors that bounced back and forth, and microrotors to allow for thinner movements. The very names of new automatic watches evidenced the industry's excitement with the automatic movements—Datomatic, Depthomatic, Geomatic, Gyromatic, Kingmatic, Powermatic and Tempomatic, to name a few. There was even
Jaeger-LeCoultre's Futurematic, which took the bold step of deleting the crown, as if to announce that crowns were a thing of the past. With the increasing popularity of automatic watches, the chronograph manufacturers faced an imperative: they could either develop automatic chronographs or they would continue to see the erosion of their annual sales.
Commencing in the mid-1960s, four leading watch manufacturers engaged in the race to develop the first automatic chronograph. Much like the Soviet/U.S. space race to plant the first flag on the moon, Heuer, Breitling, Zenith and Seiko set out to produce the world's first automatic chronograph. Heuer and Breitling worked in a unique partnership; Seiko and Zenith each worked alone.
THE RIVALS
In retrospect, it seems curious that Zenith embarked on the mission to develop an automatic chronograph. Founded in 1865, Zenith had established its reputation during the 1940s and 1950s as a manufacturer of chronometers and watches for the military. As a true manufacture, Zenith produced its own movements, but the company offered only a limited line of chronographs (and was not a member of the Swiss association of chronograph manufacturers).
In 1960, with its acquisition of the Martel Watch Company,
Zenith significantly enhanced its capabilities in the design and production of chronographs. Zenith embarked on the design of an automatic chronograph in 1962, hoping to introduce this revolutionary chronograph to mark the company's 1965 centennial.
Founded in 1881 as a manufacturer of clocks, Seiko manufac-tured its first wristwatches in 1913 and the Seiko name first appeared on a watch dial in 1924. In 1955, Seiko produced Japan's first automatic wristwatch, and in 1960, the company launched its Grand Seiko line of watches, designed to represent the highest development of Japanese watches.
To bolster its international reputation for quality, in the mid-1960s Seiko began to compete in the Swiss Observatory Chronometer competitions, enjoying remarkable success in these endeavors and bringing worldwide recognition to the company. Nineteen sixtyfour was a momentous year for the company, as Seiko was the official timekeeper of the Tokyo Olympic Games and also introduced its first chronograph, a 60 second timer, with a rotating bezel (Reference 5717). With its success in manufacturing rugged, accurate mechanical watches, Seiko positioned itself to challenge the dominance of the
Swiss watch industry (even before the advent of quartz watches).
ASSEMBLING THE CHRONOMATIC TEAM
Founded in 1860, Heuer introduced the first wrist chronographs around 1914, and had a long standing reputation in the production of chronographs and sports timing equipment, especially stopwatches, split-second timers and timing systems.
From pilots' chronographs in the 1930s, to triple calendar chronographs in the 1940s, to rugged chronographs in the 1950s, Heuer offered a broad range. In 1958, Heuer introduced its Master Time and Monte Carlo dashboard time¬pieces, and soon these "Rally Master" pairs were used by over half the leading rally teams. In the early 1960s, Heuer introduced two chronographs that would be popular with the racers the Autavia and the Carrera both of which were powered by Valjoux movements. Ironically, Heuer also produced a line of automatic watches, but the company abandoned these watches in the late 1950s, in order to focus on the production of chronographs.
Founded in 1873, the Buren Watch Company developed numerous calibers over the years, al¬ways manufacturing its own parts. Buren introduced its first automatic watch in 1945, and from the start was seeking to develop thinner automatic movements. Its Caliber 525 utilized a pendulum winding mechanism, recessed within the movement, rather than a rotor at the back of the movement. Ultimately, this approach was not successful, so 1952 saw Buren's first use of an automatic watch powered by a rotor.
In 1953, Buren offered the smallest automatic watch with a power reserve indicator, and in 1954, Buren patented its "microrotor," which allowed it to produce the flattest possible automatic watches. By shrinking the diameter of the rotor (to fit within the radius of a comparable movement), and locating this rotor in the same plane as other components of the movement, Buren avoided the need to place the rotor behind the movement. Buren's first watches using the microrotor were the Super Slenders (calibers 1000 and 1001) introduced in 1957, with this automatic system also known as the Intramatic system.
Buren licensed its microrotor technology to other companies, including
IWC, Baume & Mer-cier, Bulova and Hamilton. After a patent dispute, Buren also began to license its microrotor technology to Universal Geneve. The Caliber 12/Chronomatic movement had its origins in the late 1950s when Charles-Edouard Heuer then the President of Ed. Heuer & Co. began to consider how the company might produce an automatic chronograph. Heuer studied the microrotor movements being produced by Buren and began to explore the idea of mounting a chronograph mechanism on top of this movement.
The idea was short lived, however, as even the combination of the thinnest Buren movement and the thinnest chronograph mechanism would be too thick to compete effectively against the sleek watches of the era. (Remember, this was also the period of Hamilton's Thin-O-Matics!)
All this changed, however, in 1962, when Buren introduced an even thinner microrotor movement the Caliber 1280 Intramatic movement. With the thickness of this movement reduced from 4-3 millimeters to 3.2 millimeters, it now seemed possible to build a suitably thin automatic chronograph. At this point, Heuer faced the question of who could build this thinnest-possible chronograph module, to be mated with Buren's base movement.
Of the four companies involved in the development of the Chronomatic movement, Dubois-Depraz is surely the company least known to the public. Founded in 1901, Dubois-Depraz didn't manufacture watches or movements, and it didn't produce chronographs, but as the leader in designing the so-called "complications," Dubois-Depraz worked with watch companies to make simple, base movements into more complicated watches or chronographs.
Starting with a simple time of day movement, Dubois-Depraz had the ability to add a broad variety of complications, including a chronograph, power reserve indicator, or calendar. Heuer had called on Dubois-Depraz to develop the movements for Heuer's 7700 series of stopwatches. This work culminated in 1967 when Dubois-Depraz's developed a special module for Heuer's Monte Carlo stopwatch (Caliber 7714) so that a single pusher would simultaneously reset the minute and second hands as well as the hour disc.
Based on these experiences, Heuer engaged Dubois-Depraz to study the feasibility of developing a chronograph module that could be mated with the Buren movement. Ironically, Gerald Dubois (then president of the company) had conducted comprehensive research into the design of a chronograph module to be used with the Buren microrotor movements, and had discussed the idea with Buren. When Dubois-Depraz confirmed the feasibility of this project, the Chronomatic venture was almost ready for action. The Chronomatic would be a 17-jewel lever movement consisting of two essential elements described as being "totally independent": the Buren base movement (including the self-winding and calendar mechanisms) and the Dubois-Depraz chronograph module, a plate holding a newly designed chronograph mechanism. In short a modular automatic chronograph.
Since its inception in 1884,
Breitling was known for its production of chronographs and precision counters for scientific and industrial purposes. As Heuer was the brand most closely associated with automobile racers and racing, Breitling became recognized as the brand for pilots and flying. In the 1930s, Breitling began to produce on-board chronographs for aircraft and introduced the first two-button chronographs, allowing the user to stop and restart the chronograph (time-out and time-in functions.)
In 1942, Breitling launched the Chronomat, the first chronograph fitted with a circular slide rule on the dial and bezel; ten years later, Breitling introduced its legendary Navitimer, a three-register chronograph equipped with a circular slide rule, as well as a "navigation computer" capable of handling all calculations called for by a flight plan. As Heuer, Buren and Dubois-Depraz stood ready to embark on the development of their automatic chronograph, there was one last hurdle between the venture and the commencement of its working . . . this hurdle being the capital required to fund the project. Development of an automatic chronograph would be a costly venture, more than Heuer and Buren could undertake as two relatively small, independent companies.
To address this need, Jack Heuer (then president of Heuer-Leonidas) did something unusual, for the 1960s or for today. He approached his friend Willy Breitling (then President of Breitling) to discuss the idea of a partnership. Though they were direct competitors in their lines of chronographs and stopwatches, Jack Heuer has explained their cooperation on the Chronomatic project in the simplest terms.
"Heuer was a very strong brand in the United States and U.K. markets, but weaker in Europe. Breitling was strong in Italy and France, but had little presence in the U.S. or the U.K. Both of us needed an automatic chronograph; it would be difficult for either of us to develop it, working alone. This was a perfect opportunity to create a partnership in which both partners though entering as rivals—could strengthen their positions."
With Dubois-Depraz having confirmed the feasibility of building a modular chronograph, and Breitling and Heuer committed to funding this unique partnership and sharing its output, Heuer and Breitling then approached Buren with their proposition of a partnership. Joining the Chronomatic team was attractive for a small company such as Buren. Compared with the small customers who bought Buren's movements, Heuer and Breitling would constitute a significant opportunity for Buren.
With that, the Chronomatic team was fully formed—two leading chronograph brands, the leading manufacturer of thin
automatic movements and the leading specialist in developing chronographs and other complications.
In 1966, while development of ti Chronomatic movement was under-way, Buren was acquired by Hamilton Watch Company (of Pennsylvania). Hamilton transfered much of its own production to the Buren factory in Switzerland, and through the Buren acquisition, became a partner in the development of the Chronomatic movement.
While Heuer and Breitling were surprised to have Hamilton as their new partner, Hamilton had a limited history in the production of chronographs and would not represent a threat to the founding partners, using only a small portion of the movements produced by the Chronomatic group.
PROJECT 99
The members of the Chronomatic group realized the importance of secrecy in their work. With four partners in the group (and eventually five), and a host of other companies that would come to be involved in the production of cases, dials and other components, there were many people involved in the day-to-day operation of the project. Confidentiality was of utmost importance as the Chronomatic group raced against unknown opponents to produce the first automatic chronograph.
Throughout the term of the project, employees of the participating companies were prohibited from uttering the phrase "automatic
chronograph." Jack Heuer recalls that his father, having served as a Brigadier General in the Swiss Army, insisted that the Chronomatic project have a code name. With that, this unique partnership became Project 99.
Dubois-Depraz had the most difficult assignment in Project 99. While there would be relatively few modifications in Buren's base movement, Dubois-Depraz would develop the chronograph module (to be known as the 8510 chronograph unit) from scratch. Accordingly, Gerald Dubois of Dubois-Depraz was the technical leader of Project 99, and he also supervised the development of the chronograph module. Hans Kocher, who had developed Buren's microrotor and served as its technical director, had overall responsibility for the base movement. The technical heads of Heuer and Breitling also served as senior managers of the Project 99 development team.
While not deeply involved in the technical design of the Chronomatic movement, Heuer and Breitling were responsible for designing an entirely new series of cases and dials for the new Chronomatics.
Additionally, these firms began to prepare for serial production of the Chronomatics, which would be a significant undertaking for these companies. Soon after that we began to see designer inspired replica chromatic watches pop up all over the web. If you want to find some of the best replica watches on the web today you can find them at
www.timetraditions.com.
In serial production, Heuer and Breitling would receive the base movements from Buren, complete the assembly of chronograph modules received from Dubois-Depraz, combine this "sandwich" into a completed movement, and then assemble the completed chronograph. Indeed, each of the partners in the Chronomatic group faced challenges as these four firms raced to develop and launch the world's first automatic chronograph.
Special thanks to Jack Heuer and Hans Schrag for their contributions to this article. Jack Heuer joined Ed. Heuer & Co. in 1958, and as president of Heuer-Leonidas he was responsible for the development of the Chronomatics. Hans Schrag joined Heuer as a watchmaker in 1963 and has worked on the Chronomatic movements since their introduction in 1969. Both these gentlmen have been generous in sharing their vast knowledge of the Chronomatics.
In Part Two of this series, we will see which group Heuer Breitling Hamilton, Zenith or Seiko
won the race to offer the first automatic
chronographs.