In The Shop: A 1960s Leonidas Reference CP-2, A 1960s Zenith Chronograph Reference A278, And A 1960s Zodiac Sea Wolf
This week we’ve narrowed our focus a bit, shining a light on the formal and functional watches of the 1960s and 70s. Each watch was manufactured with a specific purpose in mind, whether to add a touch of mature class to your wrist, to let you easily read the time under water, or to pioneer a quartz movement in a distinctly 70s case. As an added bonus, there’s a Rolex Oyster Perpetual reference 1002 from 1966 that has retained its papers (and good looks) for half a century – no small feat. Read on for more details.
If you’ve ever looked down at your smart watch and thought, ‘If only I could change that case out for a real mechanical watch by a recognisable Swiss luxury watch brand,’ boy are you in luck because that’s exactly what TAG Heuer’s new Connected Modular 45 allows you to do. Going one step further than just a strap hack, the watch also has a tiny masterstroke in that you can change the lugs too, which can have the effect of changing the whole appearance of the watch. All in all, it does the equivalent of unleashing the Swiss hounds on Silicon Valley, by introducing something new to the smart watch suite that the tech community will never be able to. TAG Heuer’s first Connected was the luxury watch industry’s only serious foray into smart watches and the stakes were high. “This will either be my greatest success or biggest failure,” said TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver at the time. It turned out to be neither, because while the sell-through was apparently very good (Biver would have you believe it was unprecedented and the most sold TH model since it was released), it has just been superseded with a new version that is not, unfortunately for…
BASEL BUILDUP: The first Omega Speedmaster was released in 1957, so the iconic model is celebrating its 60th this year. We’re pretty confident this means we’ll be seeing an anniversary edition at Baselworld in a few days, which led us to speculate (fairly intensely) about what it might look like. As with all things involving ‘vintage’ and ‘Speedmaster’, our journey led back to Petros Protopapas, Brand Heritage Manager of Omega, who told us some great stories about the model at an event we held back in 2014, called ‘The Night of Omega Firsts’. We decided to take a close look at what he said about the 1957 Speedmaster, to piece together possible clues about what a reissue might look like. 
Ladies and gentleman, if we could please have your attention during our pre-flight safety demonstration. Our pilots today are Skip Stewart and Jurgis Kairys. During our three-minute flight you will experience some turbulence, along with dizzying aerobatics, death-defying stunts and extreme speed, so we advise you to familiarise yourself with the brace position. If you have any concerns about your heart rate, please consult the pulsometer on the Oris Royal Flying Doctor Service II. We’ll be departing from Avalon Airshow – the most significant event on the Australian aviation calendar – in the safe hands of Oris, who have a proven track record in pilot’s watches since 1917. We hope you enjoy your flight.