Its image was hampered by its manually winding caliber-something of an irony seeing as it was made by the marque which had produced the first workable automatic movement.īut that was in the 1930s and by the time the Daytona was released the world was into the burgeoning Space Age, and not only were self-winding watches par for the course, but the first rumblings of quartz technology were starting to be heard. Yet when the Daytona hit the shelves, it was met with a great shrug of indifference. Rolex was on a high and fully expected their racer’s stopwatch to carry on their single-minded rise to the top of the industry. It was an excellent, handsome and beautifully engineered piece, as you would expect from the manufacture which had already just brought out the Explorer, Submariner, GMT-Master, Day-Date and Milgauss all within the space of six or seven years. There was nothing at all wrong with the watch.
The history of the Rolex Daytona and its incredible success hinges massively on the technological breakthrough Zenith made with their El Primero.įor anyone in the dark, when Rolex launched their first production chronograph in 1963 it was the closest that giant of a brand had come to experiencing out-and-out failure. For this edition of our ‘Rivalry’ series, we take a look at two watches that manage to be fierce competitors while also sharing a vital bond in each others narratives.
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