So having spent the Canadian long weekend virtually spending more money that I don't have with the Zenith catalogue, it occurred to me that Breitling is still very traditional in some ways with their watches.

I know that's an odd thing to say about Breitling, but am I the only one who thinks that a few retrogrades would look good - especially on some of the larger faced watches?

I totally agree. While I adore Breitling, I've said a few times on here in the past that they currently seem to rely very heavily on the Breitling 13 and 17 calibres, and varients of them. If anything they are worse now than they used to be. For example, a few years ago they had a number of different movements, including fully automatic rattrapantes, the electro-mechanical calibre 69, the Twin Sixty models had interesting movements, the Breitling 36 in the Spatiographe, etc, etc.....

I'd love to see a fully auto rattrapante again, and at reasonable prices. Omega used a auto rattrapante movement in their Speedmaster Split Second to good effect and that wasn't stupidly expensive. I'm sure Breilting could lay their hands on that and other slightly more interesting movements once in a while.....

I'm not expecting Breitling to suddenly go crazy, but some creativity would be appreciated.

But for me it's definitely an automatic rattrapante. Something like a 46mm to 48mm Chronomat look-a-like rattrapante would be something to drool over!

Sign me up, and please tell me when they're in store...

Hey, maybe they even browse the forum occasionaly..... meh, doubt it.

It would be great if an official factory person could give some input to the forum here, he'd need to be referred to as the oracle!

I think Thomas (Alien) is the closest we've got an "inside man" so far!

As long as we see a Full Ling sized, Windrider Series, Exhibition Back, Rattrapante with a retrograde power reserve I don't care who's listening

I have to admit, I am pretty much devoted to the Breitling style. While everyone else is doing the retrograde thing, they are still sticking to the old traditions. Personally, it was a big step for me to even go to a watch such as the Blacksteel, with any complications at all. I think that the Breitling 13 is about as complicated as I would like to go.
I would really like it if Breitling would make one very simple model, white dial with numbers and not even a calendar, that would resemble the clock in the Bentley. I could go for that!
Cheers,
Carl