![]() ![]() They look as if they are floating around the dial, and this effect makes me wish more watches had hands with this style. This makes the handset come alive when the light shines off the polished sections. The hour and minute hand look skeletonized, but black paint and lume are in between the hand’s polished sections. I can’t help but think how excellent it would have looked with just Zenith and the stylized El Primero text. Zenith crammed too much text at the 12 o’clock position, and while it still works, it feels a bit overcrowded. Running seconds, 30-minute, and 12-hour totalizers are present and use the small dial area well. The dial layout is classic chronograph style with three subdials. Taking the aged lume out of the equation, this feels like what the original A385s would have looked like when they were new. The warm brown that is used darkens as it reaches the edges of the dial. The A385 uses aged lume in this way, as it perfectly complements the dial color. Today, the term is less prevalent, especially as aged lume has become a design choice rather than trying to force age onto a watch. Several years ago, the term fauxtina was used on any watch that had aged lume. The A385 is a masterclass in reissuing a watch the right way. When you put the A385 on your wrist, it will likely ruin other automatic chronographs for you. This allows the watch to sit low and wear true to its dimensions. The A385 perfectly uses the tonneau-shaped case, which has sharp, sloping lugs that hug the wrist and let the strap sit low in the case. You may think, “just because it is a relatively small automatic chronograph, doesn’t mean it is comfortable.” That is a valid concern, especially because some case shapes make small watches sit flat on the wrist and appear way larger than they are. No chunky chronographs are allowed in the Zenith parking lot. Compared to another famous automatic chronograph like the Valjoux 7750, which comes in at 7.9mm tall, it is easy to see where Zenith can keep this watch slim and comfortable on the wrist. One of the benefits of the El Primero movement is its slim 6.5mm height, and this allows Zenith to slap this bad boy inside a case that is only 12.5mm thick and a touch over 11mm wrist-to-crystal. The comfort continues as you make your way around the rest of the watch. The small dial helps keep that wrist presence in check. The 47mm lug-to-lug gives the case more wrist presence on the wrist, but it never feels like it is taking over your wrist. Rather than taking the ill-advised path of upsizing this reissue as many brands do, Zenith did the right thing and kept the size true to the original. It is designed to embody the original A385 introduced in 1969 and was one of the first watches from Zenith to feature the El Primero movement. ![]() The Revival A385 is 37mm of tonneau-shaped goodness. Designed to be a callback to the first El Primero-powered chronographs, this watch is smaller in size, but that’s where the modesty ends. ![]() The El Primero we have our eyes on today is placed inside the Chronomaster Revival A385. It is reliable, highly accurate, and contains many “firsts” in mechanical chronograph movements. The El Primero carries this provenance in its catalog for a good reason. In the case of Zenith and the El Primero movement, it is the heart and soul of the Chronomaster line of chronographs and their most recognized movement. Rolex has amalgamated a watch case and movement with the Oyster Perpetual. Omega leaned on the history of the 1861 so heavily that it was in production for over 25 years. This can evolve to maintain that recognition across an entire line of watches. Some watch movements carry so much recognition that they become part of the brand itself. ![]()
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