Elite Classic
Elite 6150 by Zenith: promising developments
Though the El Primero is the manufacture’s most famous movement, the newly introduced at Baselworld Elite 6150 reiterates Zenith’s manufacturing ambitions in 2015.
By Marco Cattaneo
Journalist
The Elite 6150 is housed in a 42-mm (a new size for Zenith) steel case that comes with an alligator rubber strap.
Improved chronometrics
Both the movement and its oscillating mass, decorated with “Côte de Genève”, are clearly visible through the sapphire glass. Earlier versions of this movement were housed in many thin and diamond-set watches of the Le Locle-based brand for which the movement is of strategic importance. The Elite 6150 caliber was designed in a new structure and lays the foundations for future developments.
The caliber, created in 1994, has been modified several times from the initial ultra-thin 3.92-mm three-hand movement.
Zenith has doubled the caliber’s autonomy by adding a second barrel to it that gave it a100-hour power reserve; that is, more than four days (!). The second-hand has been moved from its initial position at 9 o’clock to the dial’s center. The caliber has been modified to measure 30 mm, which is a size that better suits the cases it will likely be housed in whilst leaving space for potential new functions.
Historical legitimacy with the US Navy as backdrop
150 years ago, more precisely in 1865, Zenith started a history that has brought about what can be considered as a logical result: encompassing precision, large power reserve and some 2,333 awards won at several international chronometry competitions. The awards were given to its pocket watches, wristwatches and marine chronometers. Well before satellites and geolocation even existed, ships used chronometers to determine their position. The stakes were high as ships needed chronographs to offer both precision and good power reserves. This was exactly what the US Navy was looking for eight days before the end of World War I. As Zenith could offer precisely that, it became the US Navy’s supplier in the early 20th century with the help of a company based in Colorado who contributed to avoid the hazards of protectionism.
The spectacular models from the Christophe Colomb collection illustrate the skills the brand developed thanks to marine chronometers. Those models are a reinterpretation of the gimbal suspension principle that enables them to stay in a horizontal position despite the waves and the rolling. Today, this system, which is housed in a gyroscopic module and is miniaturized to a maximum, keeps the regulating organ and the balance at a horizontal level, and thus guarantees it has the widest amplitude possible.
