The following year, the second white and “panda” dial version were released. Nearly 50 years after the initial airing of the anime series, Zenith finally turned fantasy into reality in 2019 by producing the Chronomaster Revival Lupin The Third, using the instantly recognizable A384 tonneau-shaped case and recreating the unusual black dial depicted in the first episode. And in the final episode of the first series, Jigen is again portrayed to be wearing another Zenith chronograph, but with a different “panda” dial that also never existed. In the very first episode of the animated Lupin The Third series, Daisuke Jigen, the right-hand man and best friend of the title character Lupin III, is portrayed wearing a watch based on the A384 with a black, grey and gilt dial that had never actually existed. In 2019, Zenith became the first manufacture to produce a watch directly inspired by a depiction in a Japanese manga and anime series. The A386, the A385 and of course the model that is the basis for this revival, the A384. While there is a debate on who was first, there’s no doubt that Zenith were first to announce the El Primero, with three different references. However, there were a couple of silent watch manufactures working on this advance too: in the Far East was Seiko, who were busy working on their own version and then there was the company from Le Locle Zenith. There were of course a few companies that shared an interest in claiming this technological breakthrough: Heuer/Buren-Hamilton/Breitling.

During the early 1960s there was a race on to see who could create the world’s first self-winding (automatic) chronograph.

The El Primero is a legend within its own right but there is a much debated story behind it. It was only as recently as the 1960s that there was a push to invent an automatic chronograph and while Zenith can be considered the first, it wasn’t quite that straight forward. As we all know, chronographs have been around since the 19 th century but it wasn’t that long ago that automatic chronographs were introduced. You’ve likely heard me say this before, but it seems that for the past few years, Zenith use the first month of the year to remind us that the Zenith El Primero is quite simply one of the most important chronographs in watchmaking history.

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