What made the A385 truly stand was its smoked brown gradient dial with a vignette effect that blackens towards the edges and provides a striking sense of visual depth, as if the dial was domed. The only differences are the domed sapphire crystal instead of an acrylic glass and the display back instead of the closed solid steel case back, offering an unobstructed view of the El Primero 400 chronograph movement. Using the original blueprints and production plans, each part of the A385’s 37mm tonneau-shaped stainless steel case, including the pump-style pushers, is faithful to the original 1969 model. The Chronomaster Revival A385 is an actual reproduction of the original model from 1969 in an exercise of “reverse engineering” by the Manufacture. Upon landing, the watch was still functioning perfectly. This extreme test consisted of strapping the watch to an Air France Boeing 707’s landing gear on a flight from Paris to New York to test its resistance to external aggressions such as drastic temperature fluctuations, wind force and changing air pressure. In fact, the A385 made headlines back in 1970, when it took part in Zenith’s “Operation Sky”. Among them was the A385, a tonneau-shaped steel chronograph with an eye-catching brown gradient dial, which was the first “smoked” dial ever to be made in the watch industry and for Zenith. It made its debut in three distinct stainless steel models. In 1969, Zenith unveiled El Primero, the world’s first automatic high-frequency chronograph. Swiss luxury watch brand Zenith is bringing back one of the earliest and most emblematic El Primero-equipped chronographs from the earliest days of the revolutionary calibre in the form of a Chronomaster Revival model.
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