The 1960s saw the race for the development of the world's first automatic chronograph : Two groups were fighting in this race : The group of Movado/ Zenith versus Heuer/ Breitling/ Hamilton/ Dubois Depraz. Both groups achieved their aims at about the same time and exhibited their new developments at the Basel Fair in 1969. Both claimed to be the first to introduce the first automatic chronograph in the world. However, the caliber 11 by the group of Heuer/ Breitling/ Hamilton/ Dubois Depraz beat the Movado/ Zenith team.
1965 : the chronograph specialists Breitling and Heuer-Leonidas with Hamiliton-Bruen and Dubois Depraz, who started the development of their project . When the delegation of the four companies met together for the first time in 1965, they were so obsessed with keeping things secret that they gave their project a confidential code name: 99.
During this meeting, the role each house would play was distributed :
Bruen would be in charge of the special automatic mechanism (adapted from Bruen’s "Intramatic" Caliber : Planetary rotor of heavy winding in both direction via gliding pinion)
Dubois-Depraz would be responsible for the chronographic module (chronograph unit 8510 with coulisse-lever switching, equipped with a 12-hour and a 30-minute counter) as well as the oscillating pinion invented by Edouard Heuer.
Breitling and Heuer would develop the other components and oversee the design of the watch dial and case.
22nd of september 1967 : Heuer/ Breitling/ Hamilton/ Dubois Depraz ask for the patent of the Caliber 11
By 1968, the group had carried out the first conclusive tests and developed experimental prototypes. The winding-mechanism and the caliber 11 chronograph, worked marvelously well, even under extreme conditions, with an accuracy close to the norms required of a chronometer
September 1968 : Breitling manufacture a first pre-serie of the Chronomatic : this is the VERY FIRST automatic Chronograph in the world (see at the end of this page pictures of a Navitimer Chronomatic from this first pre-serie)
3rd of March 1969 : after 500,000 Swiss francs spend, the world first automatic chronograph was unveiled, over a month before Basel fair 1969 where the El Primero was introduced.
31st of August 1972 : the patent of the caliber 11 is officially published 作者: EILUXwatchwinde 时间: 2013-3-27 13:48 http://elishi.taobao.com/,这里机芯的绝配,自动机芯更离不了。作者: lxhprc 时间: 2013-3-27 14:36
很多新人以为是手动的作者: 夏日之光0516 时间: 2013-3-27 15:11
我是来数字母的!作者: 表铭 时间: 2013-3-27 15:26
好文,感谢版主,学习了,计时码表阵营真是多,对计时的理解真是博大精深啊!