The Anti-El Primero: The Strange Story of the Zenith Time Command

One of the most heroic stories in watchmaking is the tale of Zenith El Primero.
 

Making its debut in 1969, this legendary calibre was one of the world’s first automatic chronographs. Unfortunately, only a few years later, in 1975, at the height of the Quartz Crisis, the higher-ups at the American company that owned Zenith at the time abandoned the El Primero, believing mechanical watchmaking was dead. Thus, they ordered the Swiss watchmakers to destroy all things El Primero.
 

Fortunately, one man, a senior engineer named Charles Vermot, disobeyed the order to destroy any remaining stock and throw out the tooling necessary to make the El Primero, hiding the machinery, parts, technical plans, and a detailed written record of the manufacturing process in an attic at Zenith’s factory in Le Locle.

A decade later, Vermot’s heroic act would be the first step in producing the El Primero again. Still, every hero story needs a villain. And the villain of this tale was the timepiece meant to replace the El Primero.

For you see, when Zenith execs moved to delete the El Primero, they did so to promote an equally innovative collection called the Time Command (or TimeCommand, depending on which corner of the internet you inhabit).

Earlier this summer, while browsing Facebook Marketplace for interesting objects and art, I came across a blurry photo of five watches. They were a mix of styles, from classic to mid-century modern to 1980s-era workaday LCDs. But one stood out: It was a formal watch with what looked like a date window positioned at 6 o’clock.
 

No amount of CSI-style enlarging and refocusing of the photo could provide me with an accurate ID. Still, in my heart, I knew I had seen this watch before, and if my hunch was right, I could soon be the owner of a rare and elusive Zenith Time Command, a.k.a. the timepiece that (almost) killed the El Primero.

If you think our current mood is chaotic, the 1970s were an unmitigated mess. The Seventies, of course, had the Quartz Crisis, when cheap, mass-produced, battery-powered watches from Japan flooded the global market, pulling the rug out from under the feet of traditional Swiss Maisons; however, it was also an era of corporate takeovers that resulted in all kinds of kooky pairings (like Favre Leuba owning Jaeger-LeCoultre).

In 1968, Zenith had merged with Movado, then later Mondia. So far, no kookiness. Then, in 1972, the Zenith-Movado-Mondia group (which is a story that will have to wait for another day) was taken over by the Zenith Radio Corporation of America. Kooky.

Not only did the two unrelated organizations share a name, but the Zenith Radio Corporation of America also saw the acquisition as an opportunity to show off its electronics expertise. The American company even redesigned the brand’s signature star-shaped logo to be a square with a star-like shape inside.
 

In advertisements, Zenith played up the digital nature of the Time Command collection, touting it as the first ana-digi quartz watch. However, unlike nearly all other quartz watches of its era, the Time Command has a jumping minute hand (trust me, this is a delight to observe) and a small LED display that shows the seconds or the date.

Despite its jumping minute hand and LED display, the Time Command’s most innovative features are the electronically controlled quick set hours (perfect for quickly changing time zones) and its “synchronization mode,” during which the movement can be turned off completely, then reset to synchronize it with radio time perfectly.

The Time Command’s achievements don’t hold a candle to the El Primero legend. But its unique-for-the-time marriage of analog and digital functions still has an important place in watchmaking history, paving the way for pieces like the 1976 Omega Seamaster Albatros, the GM-2100 “CasiOak” made by Casio, and the Citizen Trench Run.

“I have a deep fondness for my Time Command collection,” Mitch Greenblatt, the man behind Watchismo Times, the @horolovox Instagram account, and owner of the microbrand Xeric, told Watchonista in an email.

Greenblatt’s incredible collection of left-of-the-dial timepieces can also be seen in his book Retro Watches: The Modern Collector’s Guide. “It was one of the earliest vintage watches I collected that truly offered a glimpse of the future, from a Seventies perspective,” Greenblatt continued.
 

“This watch, alongside other design milestones, like Roger Tallon’s LIP watches from France, presented a vision of what a watch could be next, breaking away from the traditional standard circles and squares.”

There were three families in the Time Command collection. One is a group of more formal round and oblong-shaped timepieces with a minimalist dial (mine is a gold-plated version from this series).

The next is a DEFY version with the classic tonneau-shaped case.

Finally, the grailiest of grails, the third was the Time Command Futur, featuring a steel, square-shaped case, an offset LED display, and a protective crystal that melded into the case like a horological infinity pool.

The Time Command was certainly ahead of its time, but so was the original El Primero A386, which would make its grand comeback in 2019.

Greenblatt, who was an early advocate for the revival of eccentric watch designs of the 1970s, also told us that, for aficionados like him, “The Zenith Time Command stood out with its shape that seamlessly transitions from round to square and back again with perfect brushing and polished details.
 

“Its curved crystal, wrapping around the case like a futuristic concept car windshield, represented not just an evolution in design but also embraced cutting-edge technologies, like LED seconds and the Omega Megaquartz movements.”

The Time Command also employed an extremely unusual oblong three-gear drivetrain to drive the hour hand (which advances slowly for the first 30 minutes of each hour, very quickly for the next 20, then back to the snail pace for the last 10.
 

“These features were revolutionary at the time, akin to the debut of the first cellphones,” Greenblatt told us. Equally impressive is the fact that when I popped fresh batteries into my Time Command, it booted up immediately (Quick PSA: There are also a lot of non-runners on the secondary market because of corrosion caused by leaky watch batteries, so always remember to remove batteries when they wear out).

For me, a former die-hard mechanical watch snob, the Zenith Time Command– an almost 50-year-old quartz watch that was just as robust, well-made, and cool as any windup – was still a real eye-opener.

When Zenith returned to Swiss ownership in 1978, the Time Command became a blip in Zenith’s almost 160-year history. But I think its bad guy storyline should be reframed as an example of Zenith’s commitment to innovation and continuity.

Sadly, it’s also hard to imagine Zenith giving the Time Command its long-awaited redemption arc. But there are reasons for this beyond its unfortunate genesis: Setting the watch is not intuitive at all, and while the teeny tiny LED seconds display means that it is nicely integrated into the more formal, non-Futur editions, it also requires three hands to operate making it more like a party trick than a functional feature.
 

That doesn’t mean we aren’t advocating for a Girard-Perregaux Casquette 2.0-style limited edition re-release of the Futur. We are!

“With the Time Command, Zenith struck a balance between tradition and innovation,” Greenblatt said at the end of our correspondence. “It’s cool to see they’re still thriving over fifty years later. It would be even cooler if they could revisit that pioneering spirit and bring back some of these designs.”