new "el Primero"

Nobel Prize · Mar 18, 2015

More from baselworld 2015

Stewart H · Mar 18, 2015

Not the most adventurous issues but way better than the Nataf era abortions - I just wish they would put the date back where it is supposed to be.

Bienne2998 · Mar 19, 2015

I am a little bit worried. These are growing bigger again... to me 45 mm does not look very harmonic with a subdial layout that was designed 50 years ago for watches that have diameters of 38 mm.

Is this the influence of the new manager Aldo coming from Breitling. I feel really sorry about J-F Dufour leaving Zenith. It was him, leading Zenith back on track..

haga888 · Mar 19, 2015

The subdials just look wrong in a big case.

MMMD · Mar 19, 2015

I don't mind the 6 o'clock date. As others have mentioned, it's the cross-eyed look that bugs me. They need to scale up the El Primero so they can get the subdials farther apart in these big-ass cases. Zenith, if you're listening: you wouldn't put a cal 146 in a cal 156 case, would you? It's time for the Cal 3029 PHC "XL Primero." Yes, this flies in the face of the original concept of an integrated, compact self-winding chronograph, but it's no stupider than those 58mm Pilots. And it would look fantastic under a sapphire case back. You're welcome.

MMMD · Mar 19, 2015

By the way, @LouS, can you pop this thread into the Zenith sub-forum?

LouS · Mar 22, 2015

Meh. Pretty anonymous design. Could be from any number of brands, and certainly has no unity of conception. I hate the font on the subdials viscerally. And 45mm is not a move in the right direction. The single positive feature is that he is finally overlapping the dials correctly, with the running seconds and minutes counters in the front.

Magada is not coming out of the gate strong.

On the other hand, we have a new Zenith book to look forward to.

MMMD · Mar 22, 2015

Don't hold back... what do you think of those popsicle hands? I think there's a pun in there involving the word "suck."

LouS · Mar 22, 2015

The hands didn't rub me the wrong way. But I forgot to say how unoriginal I find the screw-down pushers. Those lugs seem to have gone flaccid too...probably because the older, more tumescent ones would stick out into the air on a 45mm case on nearly every wrist.