The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hello Guys, I am relatively new to this forum, so I hope this hasn't been covered before..

I have started to get really interested in the history of movements..

Most of you know that Breitling, together with Heuer-Leonidas, Hamilton /Buren, and Dupuis-Peraz, developed one of the first (Zenith brought out their "El Primero" at about the same time) automatic chronographs in the "Chronomatic Group" partnership.

This was the "Caliber 11" that came out in 1969, which was quickly developed into the "Caliber 12". "Caliber 14" and "Caliber 15" movements followed shortly later.

So far so geeky..

My question is: what happened to these? I don't see any reference to this on the movements list in Breitling Source. Yes, there are B11 and B12, but these are manual movements based on the venerable Lemania 187X.

I had originally thought that maybe the Valjoux 7750 is the development of the original "Chronomatic" partnership, but this seems to be a 4th separate development (next to Zenith and Seiko).

Any ideas? Was this only put in the Chrono-Matic and then Breitling when bankrupt? What did Breitling actually call it? Did it evolve into something we know that is used today?

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Navi 1966 806 (Venus 178)
Chrono-Matic ref. 2130 (Cal. 11)
Navi Mechanique (Lemania 1873) LE Patrouille de France
Navi Old II (Valjoux 7750) LE Snowbirds (sold)
Tavannes 1942 Chronomat ref. 769 (Venus 175)

Well let's deal with the argument that is in danger of starting first - which came first.

The El Primero movement most associated with Zenith was announced and shown in January 1969. The Breitling led coalition announced and showed theirs at Basel in March 1969. So the El Primero was the first movement.

However, Breitling had the Chrono-matic in the market by April 1969, whereas the first El Primero watch didn't hit the market until late May / early June 1969, so Breitling was the first commercially available movement.

OK, so the El Primero is still in use by Zenith today. It's evolved numerous times, but you can still trace the history back to the first movement.

The Breitling movement, as you document, was in use through various versions until Breitling went bankrupt in 1978. I am not sure whether any of the other automatic chronograph movements that were appearing by then were officially or unofficially based on the Breitling 11 or were separate developments, and there isn't a great record of licensing / platform development at that time.

I suspect that the movement died a death with Breitling and the increased number of alternatives, but I have no evidence to support that.