It was this lifeline – financial as well as reputational – that put Zenith back in the ring.įast-forward to the early 1990s and Zenith was once again producing its own mechanically driven models, one of which was the Chronomaster Flyback, a high-end sports watch with an El Primero movement. Some of these were sold to Ebel, but a more important customer, Rolex, soon came onboard, keen to furnish its famed Daytona with an automatic rather than hand-wound movement. But one of the company’s assets was a large stock of unassembled El Primero movements. By then, it had been reduced to assembling watches using bought-in quartz movements. He disobeyed the order to disband the El Primero production line and instead logged the necessary tooling and processes required to produce it before hiding the relevant equipment in the factory’s attics.īy 1978 the Americans had bailed and Zenith was once again under Swiss ownership. Charles Vermot, then, is our hero of the hour. This didn’t go down well with Zenith’s watchmakers, one of whom took matters into his own hands.
The order went further: machinery was to be repurposed or sold off. In 1975, the Americans insisted that the quartz revolution had won and announced that all production of mechanical movements would stop at Le Locle. Great stories often involve a “creation myth”, but in the case of the El Primero, it’s a “destruction” – or “near destruction” – myth that sealed its reputation. In 1971, Zenith was sold to its nemesis, the American Zenith Radio Company. However, during this period it did acquire a specialist chronograph producer, an important step in developing what would become its landmark complication: the world’s first fully integrated chronograph.īut just as it’s hard to overstate the importance of the El Primero, it’s hard to overstate the effect of the quartz crisis on Swiss watchmaking. Nevertheless, in 1925 James was pushed aside during a management shake-out, after which the banks were in effective control – not necessarily a good thing if you’re looking for stories of adventure and derring-do, but in this case representing something of a steadying hand in what would become a turbulent time for the business.Īfter all, Zenith had lost its important Russian business following the revolution in 1917, and it had no US business whatsoever, thanks to a trademark challenge by the American Zenith Radio Company. Zenith responded by producing dashboard clocks and onboard timers for cars, altimeters for aircraft, equipment for telephone exchanges… you name it: if it could be made and a use found for it, Zenith produced it. Times were hard for Swiss watchmakers in the aftermath of the First World War.
Georges stood down in 1911 in favour of his nephew and son-in-law James and, two years later, Zenith unveiled its first chronograph – the complication for which it will forever be associated.
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