The new Pilot Type 20 Extra Special adopts a smaller size to fit all wrists, whether masculine or feminine. Loyal to the spirit of the famous Zenith pilot’s watches, it picks up the characteristics of its predecessors such as the wide finely grained dial, oversized Arabic numerals and facetted hands ensuring perfect legibility by day or night, as well as the voluminous fluted crown guaranteeing an optimal grip.
Pilot Type 20 Extra Special © Zenith
Zenith has always held a special place for me. From a fairly young age, not long after high school, the brand occupied an elite status in my mind. More specifically, it was and remains in my top two favorite brands of all-time, the other being Grand Seiko. In my mind, they offered two intriguing sides to the same high-frequency coin. Where Grand Seiko possessed a certain austerity to it, a degree of refinement I found in few, if any other places, Zenith watches london dealers Replica was quite the opposite. Zenith might be a Swiss brand, but it always seems to have an American-grade boldness to it, a panache matched by none, at least none with Zenith’s horological pedigree. And thus, my two favorite watch brands were chosen: a restrained and sophisticated dress watch and a wild, avant-garde sports watch. Why can’t one watch just be both?Zenith, to their credit, almost had an answer to my question already: the criminally overlooked A273, a classic chronograph that had a measure of civility to it. Yet the A273 itself had committed an offense: it was offered during the same basic time frame as the legendary tri-color El Primero. Because of this coexistence, it was doomed to be overshadowed by its more prolific brother, which continues to be available today. Unlike the El Primero, the A273 was powered by a beautiful, yet far less revolutionary, hand wound movement. There it remained, largely unnoticed even among Zenith collectors, awaiting the time it too would receive the El Primero.
This resolutely vintage model radiating a winning spirit features an aged steel case teamed with a topstitched rubberlined nubuck strap. It pays tribute to the history of the Maison with a dedicated signature appearing on the solid caseback : a starred shield engraved with the date 1865, the year Zenith was founded. This unisex Pilot watch comes in four distinctive models sporting original colors on their dials and straps.
Pilot Type 20 Extra Special
Case : aged steel, water-resistant to 100m
Let’s step back a bit and discuss why this fast operating, silicon material technology is all a big deal. The name of the game here isn’t just to be exclusive with something different, but more importantly – about wristwatch performance. In the words of Jean-Claude Biver, “I imagine this is what Abraham-Louis Breguet would be excited about if he were alive today!” While we’ve seen an enormous level of variety in timepiece design over the years, there is very little new in terms of actual performance increases. That means that most mechanical watches produced are similarly accurate. Of course, there are major differences in terms of how well regulated a movement is, or how well it is constructed, but at the end of the day you can only tweak a standard mechanical watch movement to be so accurate.
Integrated chronographs, conversely, are designed from the ground up to be chronographs and chronograph components share space with non-complication parts inside the watch. An interesting side effect of integrated design is that it generally produces much more visually intriguing movements because, unlike their modular counterparts, these components are not hidden on the other side of the watch. Thus, the owner may enjoy views like the one you see here, peering directly into the chronograph itself.It’s hard to imagine that the Timeless Chronomaster Heritage Chronometer is our 11th limited edition so far, and perhaps even more mind-blowing is that it’s the first Swiss watch we’ve ever designed. It’s unfortunate, then, that only 25 will ever be produced, the smallest Timeless LE run yet. Imagining that the new watch will be gone very soon, a watch that we spent countless hours designing over the course of dozens of renders, is an interestingly difficult experience. I certainly hope that we get the opportunity to design more limited editions with Zenith in the future, but for now, the Timeless Chronomaster Heritage Chronometer will stand on its own, our first chronograph, our first Swiss watch and our first Zenith.Each of the 25 Timeless Chronomaster Heritage Chronometers costs $7,500 and there’s still some available for reservation. If you happen to be local, consider stopping in and seeing it in person. Otherwise, please e-mail us or call us at 214-494-4241 to make sure to get yours before it’s too late.
Diameter : 40mm
How will other watch makers respond? Will it become expected for watch makers to make claims about the accuracy of their watches? I am not sure that there will be an industry-wide move to mention actual numbers, but if there is a watch that comes out with a story about accuracy and some special technical elements, you can be damn sure we will point out if they omit actual performance numbers. I think what is more important is that a watch like this, with such a big emphasis on silicon, that isn’t stupid high in price, will force the industry to adopt next-generation watch movements with haste.Only a few companies in Switzerland are able to produce silicon parts. The tools needed for this task are very expensive, which includes the labor needed to operate and program them. Most watch brands that use silicon parts don’t make the components themselves. Is now a time to start given clear levels of increased need? Note again that investments by watch makers into silicon technology in traditional watchmaking has been going on for well over a decade. Though, little of this technology has trickled down into what we might call “affordable” timepieces. Jean-Claude Biver said watch makers will not produce their own silicon parts until they can also make parts for other companies in different industries.
Movement : mechanical self-winding, Elite Caliber 679, 50h power reserve
Zenith has always held a special place for me. From a fairly young age, not long after high school, the brand occupied an elite status in my mind. More specifically, it was and remains in my top two favorite brands of all-time, the other being Grand Seiko. In my mind, they offered two intriguing sides to the same high-frequency coin. Where Grand Seiko possessed a certain austerity to it, a degree of refinement I found in few, if any other places, Zenith was quite the opposite. Zenith might be a Swiss brand, but it always seems to have an American-grade boldness to it, a panache matched by none, at least none with Zenith’s horological pedigree. And thus, my two favorite watch brands were chosen: a restrained and sophisticated dress watch and a wild, avant-garde sports watch. Why can’t one watch just be both?Zenith, to their credit, almost had an answer to my question already: the criminally overlooked A273, a classic chronograph that had a measure of civility to it. Yet the A273 itself had committed an offense: it was offered during the same basic time frame as the legendary tri-color El Primero. Because of this coexistence, it was doomed to be overshadowed by its more prolific brother, which continues to be available today. Unlike the El Primero, the A273 was powered by a beautiful, yet far less revolutionary, hand wound movement. There it remained, largely unnoticed even among Zenith collectors, awaiting the time it too would receive the El Primero.
I want to also mention that it is a huge deal that Zenith even went so far as to make a claim about accuracy performance in their press release. I’ve read over a thousand wristwatch press releases and aside from Seiko (who routinely under-reports their wristwatches’ accuracy performance – for reasons again outside the scope of the conversation), Zenith is among a very small number of brands who actually make a specific claim about accuracy performance in their documentation. For Zenith and LVMH it is about increasing transparency according to Jean-Claude Biver (who is the head of watchmaking at the group).By Zenith indicating the average accuracy (performance varies under different wearing conditions) of the Defy Lab’s movement, they more or less put other brands at notice that if they want to boast about a watch “designed for high accuracy,” they actually need go the distance and make a specific claim about accuracy. This is a good time to discuss mechanisms like a tourbillon and how watch makers typically deal with such features. While a tourbillon was originally designed to increase the accuracy of a mechanical watch or clock movement, it doesn’t actually do that in many real world wristwatch applications. Thus, watch brands often rode a thin line by not actually commenting on a watch’s performance, while trying to bolster the story about what the mechanism was originally designed for. I have to applaud Jean-Claude Biver along with Zenith’s management and communication teams for going the distance and not only promoting an accurate watch, but actually telling people the type of performance that they can expect.
Functions : hours, minutes, seconds
Dial : slate gray, blue, khaki or wine-colored, numerals and hands coated with beige Super-LumiNova® SLN GL
The second, more impressive feature, however, is its unusually high frequency. It beats 10 times per second, or 36,000 BPH, 25% faster than an ordinary modern watch, but an astonishing 100% faster than many watches at the time it was released. It quickly developed a strong reputation for accuracy and precision. In fact, the El Primero in this watch is, if the name didn’t give it away, a certified chronometer, and it thus carries with it a greater guarantee of accuracy than even most other El Primeros. Because it’s one of very few chronographs that beats 10 times per second, it can also measure events in 0.1 second increments, supposing that your reaction time is up to the challenge.One reason that our Timeless Chronomaster Heritage has been able to avoid the obesity that’s befallen many of its counterparts is because the El Primero is what is commonly called an integrated chronograph. In general, there are two kinds of chronographs, integrated ones, like you see here, and modular chronographs, which are also very common. Modular chronographs take an ordinary, non-chronograph movement and add a chronograph module to it. This makes it relatively easy for a company to produce chronographs because it doesn’t require the creation of an all-new movement from scratch, but it generally results in thicker than necessary movements.
The watch we’re looking at today does have an El Primero, but it’s not the A273. It’s the new Timeless Chronomaster Heritage Chronometer limited edition. It’s closely inspired by that A273, of course, but it is not a reissue or a new version. Instead, it takes a leap forward, and not only in terms of the movement as we’ve made subtle updates throughout the watch. Let’s take a close look at the Timeless Chronomaster Heritage Chronometer and learn more about both its predecessor and the limited edition.The aesthetic heart of any watch is its dial. Almost everything that defines a model as a unique, distinctive piece can be found there. For this watch we wanted to use a dial that was extremely understated and clean, yet never boring. That meant removing almost everything that was superfluous. I find that the need for simplicity is greatest in chronographs, and other watches with intrinsically busy dials. This watch, therefore, would have no date and it would have no “El Primero” or “36,000 VPH” writing on it. It had to be reduced to the essence of what a chronograph must have while nonetheless balancing some of those traits that defined its ancestor.
Strap : mustard, blue, khaki or wine-colored, titanium pin buckle
