This is actually a tourbillon watch I would wear daily. Zenith’s new El Primero collection of watches is a thing of beauty. I have been eying them for a while, enjoying how they look on the wrist. They have now announced a tourbillon version of it.
Now most of the time when a company takes a new collection and shoves in a tourbillon I hardly take real notice, but in this instance Zenith has put together a satisfying set of feature that you could wear each day – assuming you can afford it of course.
Let’s pretend for a second that you can. There are two versions of the watch available. Each comes in a 44mm wide case. One is steel with a black and silver dial, and the other is in 18k rose gold with a silver and gold dial. The steel is my choice simply because I like the colors more – but each is quite lovely.
Using the good looking new El Primero watch style case the the movement used is Zenith in-house made 4035D automatic tourbillon chronograph movement. Being a high-beat El Primero movement it runs at 36,000bpm and has a power reserve of 50 hours. The high frequency of the watch gives it added accuracy over other watches, especially tourbillons. Thus, you have something pretty accurate, and it is also an automatic. The chronograph functions are neatly integrated on the dial in an asymmetrical fashion. The subdials are thankfully really easy to read.
Zenith uses a new date display system around the tourbillon window. A small disc with a window in it is used to indicate the date, as it frames the exposed tourbillon window that doubles as a subsidiary seconds dial. The retro functional feel of the dial is what sells me on the looks of it. Not ultra “exciting” at first, the style and easy to enjoy looks of the dial do grow on you.
Turn the watch over and you’ll find a handsome exposed movement through the sapphire crystal caseback window. I like the Zenith star logo cut into the automatic rotor. Back on the dial the hour indicators and hands are great. Very complex looking, the hour markers are applied and have SuperLumiNova on them. Hands are sized well and easy to read. You also forget with how simple it is all put together that this is a serious piece of haute horology. I would totally wear one daily. Price is $49,700 for the steel version and $66,800 for the 18k gold version.
See Zenith watches on eBay here.
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