The Breitling Chronomat is an unforgettable design icon of the 20th century that has successfully evolved to delight a whole new generation of fans in the new millennium. The original Chronomat’s magical appeal stemmed from its fusion of high luxury sensuality with hard-core aviation performance. The story goes that in the 1980s, the Italian Air Force’s aerial acrobatic flight team, the Frecce Tricolori, worked with Breitling to develop a wrist instrument that stood up to the demands of their daredevil pursuits.
At the time the Chronomat’s 38mm case was considered huge. The watch’s bezel featuring hyper-aggressive rider tabs offered excellent grip even with thick flight gloves on, and the glare-proof crystal and large luminous hands made telling time at a glance easy. But it was Breitling’s owner Ernest Schneider who provided the truly revolutionary touch. While the world, at the time, had embraced the quartz revolution with solemn finality. Schneider decided to power this chronograph with an automatic chronograph movement, a clear nod to Breitling’s roots as the creator of the world’s first automatic chronograph caliber.
In 2004, to celebrate Breitling’s 120th anniversary, the manufacture remade this iconic chronograph with an eye towards the needs and tastes of the modern consumer. Named the Chronomat Evolution, the new watch is a muscular 43.7mm in diameter, offering fantastic visibility of its complex subdials. On the enlarged dial, Breitling’s vice president Jean-Paul Girardin explained: “The Chronomat Evolution is true to Breitling’s history of providing large highly visible instruments for flight purposes. In 1984, the original Chronomat was a very large watch relative to the fashion trends of that time. Twenty years later, we have created new dimensions as demanded by customers. But we have also seized this opportunity to make the Chronomat.
Evolution even more functional, with a bigger crown and super water-tight screw locked pushers.”
The Chronomat Evolution boldly declares Breitling’s undiminished appeal as king of aviation chronographs. Today this icon has once again reciaimed its throne as the king of automatic sports chronographs.
Breitling 2006 rose gold chrono-matic 24
One key component to creating successful Retro Modern design is that you must have historical legitimacy. No manufacture has more legitimacy in the creation of automatic chronographs than Breitling, a fact vindicated by the incredible Chrono-matic. Unleashed on the world in 1969 Breitling Chrono-Matic represented a quantum leap in performance for pilot’s chronographs. Beating inside its rugged steel case at a heart rate of 19,800 vibrations per hour was the world’s first automatic chronograph movement. To understand the explosive significance of this achievement we need to look back at the history of pilot’s watches.
Chronographs made the leap to wristwatches because of the needs of aviators. They reached an apes in popularity during the Second World War when they served as indispensable aids in everything from calculating flight time to arriving at the correct rate of descent for pilots. Thanks to their pragmatic charm and the allure ot their incomparable service the wristwatch chronograph, much like the motorcycle, became a swaggeringly romantic tool of self expression for servicemen returning from war. In spite of the enduring popularity of its Navitimer watches, Breitling recognized that in order to evolve the chronograph to a new performance level it needed an automatic caliber. Their belief was that in a modern era of adventure, pilots needed the ultimate companion, a revolutionary chronograph that would be constantly charged as long as it was on their wrists. In secret Breitling initiated the project to create the Caliber II, the world’s first self winding chronograph movement. In 1969 the world was abuzz with two incendiary pieces of news. The first was that the US astronaut Neil Armstrong had landed on the moon. But back on earth new ground had been broken by Breitling. The manufacture had succeeded in its mission to harness the kinetic power of the human wrist to create a self winding chronograph.
The Chrono-Matic featured a watch crown that was transplanted to the left side of the case. In a modular construction, the chronograph mechanism needed to be placed to the front of the watch just beneath the dial. But the wheels and pinions that need to power the module were at the back of the movement. What was the solution? In an audacious act Breitling simply flipped the movement over causing its crown to now be on the left.
Looking at the Chrono-Matic in 1969 was like staring at the Corvette Stingray. It was a performance machine that was light years ahead of its time. Today while automatic chronographs abound, there is still something perpetually cool about the Chrono-Matic because of its status as the first of its kind. Revised, enlarged and fitted with a sapphire crystal over the years, the Chrono-Matic still exudes this same testosterone-pumped appeal. Its focused masculinity is expressed in the chronograph minute counter and continuous seconds subdial that blaze on the dial like a pair of high wattage headlights.
On the 2006 rose gold Chrono-Matic 24, the dial is calibrated so that the watch hands make a full revolution of the dial once in 24 hours. This method of time telling was created by Breitling for austronauts to help them fistinquish between AM and PM hours in the eternal darkness of space. Running around the perimeter of the dial is the chronograph’s information nerve center. Here you’ll find the tachymeter for calculating average speeds over 1 kilometer as well as the famous slide rule that will let you convert miles into kilometers and calculate your rate of descent with a quick twist of the bezel. At the dawn of a new era in wristwatch performance the Chrono-Matic was the pioneer and firmly planed Breitling’s claim as a champion of technical innovation. For these reasons the Chrono-Matic has become one of the most collectable cult chronographs and will remain an icon for years to come.
