The Swiss replica Breitling Transocean Chronograph Unitime world time automatic watch brings you a still quite rare complication that allows you to constantly be aware of current time in any of the 24 main time zones.
The last year was a year of resurrections for a number of Swiss-based brands and Breitling was not exception here.
Their elegant Breitling Transocean Chronograph 01 Limited Edition watch, while clearly resembling the legendary Omega Speedmaster, was a faithful tribute to the vintage 1969 Breitling Top Time chronograph.
Although from the point of view of functionality and design the new timepiece strongly reminds me the gorgeous Girard-Perregaux WW.TC family, the movement that powers the new Breitling is completely in-house, being developed, assembled and finished at their own production facilities.
Although the manufacture-made Caliber B05 movement that powers this watch is not terribly large, the dial of the piece is overburdened with three sub-dials that needed some breathing space and is equipped with a pair of rotating rings: one with a 24-hour scale and the other with 24 cities that correspond to each of main time zones.
This particular Breitling Transocean Chronograph Unitime copy watch is based on a less known Breitling Unitime Worldtime automatic travel watch from 1950s (I can’t reproduce its image for copyright reasons, but I managed to find a short video of one of surviving pieces. See it at the end of the article.)
Oh, the presence of a chronograph is the second thing that differs from the original and its, um, heir.
From where I sit, the watch would look a lot better if it was presented in a smaller case and lacked the chronograph function, but guys from Breitling probably wanted to outperform the model from Girard-Perregaux not only in terms of accuracy (it is a COSC-certified chronometer,) power reserve (it runs for more than 70 hours after being fully wound and left in a safe) and price, but also in terms of sheer presence.
Compared to WW.TC, the Chronograph Unitime looks like a captain of a football team near a middle-school nerd.
As I have already mentioned, the Breitling watch will be offered both in gold and in steel and will feature at least two colors of its dial and bezel flange: black and Polar White. I am pretty much sure than soon there will be even more dials to choose from.
By the way, the dials are protected from the elements with convex sapphire crystals with antiglare treatment on both sides.
Unlike the aforementioned Transocean, the new version of Unitime doesn’t look much like its predecessor, though.
The first of all, it is huge.
The timekeeper is presented in massive 18-carat red gold body (there will also be versions in stainless steel,) which is whole 46 millimeters in diameter!
The watch is rated for 10 ATM of water tightness, which still doesn’t make it a diving companion, but makes sure that you won’t ruing the watch if you are doused by a wave during a boat trip in particularly nasty weather.
The timepiece was presented during current Baselworld 2012 show. Price is yet to be disclosed.
By the way, here is a short video of the vintage Breitling Unitime Automatic copy watch. Enjoy!