Ok, here’s a fact: The Rolex Daytona owes a debt to the Zenith El Primero. A modified version of the El Primero movement powered the Daytona for 12 years, and marked the first automatic Daytona models. This all happened when I was merely 12 years old, in 1988. And now, Zenith is taking that debt back with a black ceramic bezel twist that dawns a new era and a new name, in the Zenith Chronomaster Sport. There’s some pretty nifty mechanical trickery going on with the new 10th of a second caliber, too, but we will get to this once the initial impression wears off, and is – in my opinion – thoroughly justified. The Zenith El Primero is famous for two reasons. One, as a watch that deserves to be called iconic even amongst the most towering icons, and that holds various important claims in the pantheon of 20th Century watchmaking, including, but not limited to the first fully integrated, Swiss made, self-winding automatic chronograph, hence the name, El Primero. The second is the El Primero’s fame as a movement alone. Even 19 years after its release in 1969, the movement was so reliable, robust and well regarded that…
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