The Chronosport UDT, The Legendary 80s Action Icon, Is Back, Built By Momentum; Nivada Recreates Forgotten Prototype; Bravur's Tour de France Watch; Czapek Refreshes Their Double Regulator

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. There’s a structure to these newsletters. I start off with a new release from a major brand, followed up with a couple of releases from smaller brands, rounded out with something really expensive. But it’s summer and releases are sparse. There’s nothing from a major brand today, so I have to lead with something a bit obscure. Let’s call this an experiment in indulgence, because this just might be in my top 5 watches of this year. Yes, I know I’m weird.

In this issue:

• The Chronosport UDT, The Legendary 80s Icon, Is Back, Built By Momentum And With A Pretty Interesting Story

• The Latest Nivada Grenchen Chronosport Recreates A Never-Released 70s Prototype

• Bravur Shows Once Again That They Are Best At Cycling Watches With Tour de France-Themed La Grande Boucle IV

• The New Czapek Complicité Place Vendôme Stardust Cobalt Refreshes The Double Regulator

Today’s reading time: 11 minutes and 12 seconds

👂What’s new

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The Legendary 80s Icon Chronosport UDT Is Back, Built By Momentum And With A Pretty Interesting Story

There’s a natural progression to watch appreciation. We all start out somewhere at the beginning, appreciating cheap watches that fit our budget, before moving up and learning about movements and heritage. At one point we all hate Rolex because it’s the cool thing to do, we go through a dress watch phase and will inevitably try to bit on every vintage watch on eBay. Along this process, we often develop unnatural obsessions with genres of watches. I know two people who just look at vintage chronographs and nothing else. Some people are heavily into divers, others appreciate the simplicity of field watches. Me? I like ana/digi watches. And not just like, I’m obsessed with them. You know the type - those watches that use both analog hands to show the time and digital displays for a second time zone or additional info. The Omega x33, Breitling Aerospace and the Seiko SNJ025 "Arnie" are just some examples of this. But one of my absolute favourite is perhaps the Chronosport UDT, built with movements sourced from the Aerospace predecessor, the Breitling Pluton. And now the watch is back, with the new and incredibly groovy and improved Momentum UDT.

The Chronosport UDT made its name not just by being a cool watch. It also quickly became a legend in the 1980s as a watch of choice of real and fictional badasses. The watch gained prominence by being used by special-operations forces worldwide, but it was immortalised forever once Sylvester Stallone in Rambo strapped one of these watches to their wrist. But, you might say, the Chronosport UDT was very cool, but the company is gone and we should all move on past this new release. Well, not really. Canada based Momentum, the company making this new UDT, is run by Simon Pennell, whose family used to own Chronosport. Yes, THE Chronosport that made the UDT. So not only is there no better company to remake the UDT, Momentum also has experience reviving old Chronosport models, like the legendary Sea Quartz 30 diver which has been worn by Tom Selleck in the first three seasons of Magnum P.I.

Before we get started, a personal note so that you can gauge my excitment. This watch is 100% making its way to my Top 10 list of new watches in 2024, so there’s that.

The Momentum UDT keeps it pretty close to the original with a couple of significant modernisations. It comes in a case that’s 42mm wide, 11.7mm thick and has a 47mm lug-to-lug, meaning it will be able to fit the majority of wrists. The case is Monnin shaped, made out of stainless steel and has a sapphire crystal on top surrounded by a unidirectional bezel with a matte ceramic insert with a 60-minute timer. The issue with any ana/digi watch older than 15 or 20 years is that they are incredibly fragile and just swinging you arm through the air can decommission them forever as vintage quartz movements are not that easy to come by. This shouldn’t be the case with the Momentum UDT, as it has 200 meters of water resistance, along with a screw down crown and pushers.

The dial of the new watches keeps the same simplicity of the original - a black base, simple printed markings, simple hands and a horizontal display at the bottom of the dial. Only everything is a little bit updated. The hands are now thicker and filled with lume, the analog seconds hand is gone and the display has been made larger. I’ll be honest, the thinner hands and smaller display of the original make for more elegant proportions, but the modern version is certainly more useful.

Inside, an even bigger change. The original Chronosport UDT used the same movement at the Breitling Pluton. The new one uses the Epson/Seiko AB12A movement which brings about a lot of good updates. It has solar charging, a second time zone, a chronograph, an alarm and, perhaps, most importantly, the ability to have the analog hands sync with the digital time display which was an incredible chore on the older ana/digi watches to get right. The watches can be had on a whole range of straps - three different rubber straps as well as two nylon Zulu straps.

And now, for the best part. The new Momentum UDT is available for pre-order right now for a price of a pretty impossible $295. After the pre-order window closes, price will go up to $369, which is still pretty affordable for what it is, especially if you look at the competition. First deliveries are expected in September. Come on, tell me this isn’t a spectacular watch! See more on the Momentum website.

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The Latest Nivada Grenchen Chronosport Recreates A Never-Released 70s Prototype

I heard someone say that they don’t like that Nivada Grenchen is focusing so much on recreating their old watches. It broke my heart to tell them, but this is exactly what new Nivada Grenchen is all about. The once huge brand, and now very successfully revived, has an immense back catalogue of beautiful and quirky watches on which they can rely on and keep cranking out stunning watch after stunning watch. And it’s pretty nice to see. Their latest release is a recreation of 1970s Nivada prototype that was made in only 10 pieces, accidentally discovered when it came up for auction two years ago. This is the new Nivada Grenchen Chronosport 38mm.

Being a recreation of a vintage watch, of course it has a vintage looking case and proportions. It takes on a kind of square stance with super short and wide lugs, but also rounded and faceted all over. The watch measures 38mm wide and a significant 15.7mm thick, thanks to the automatic chronograph movement and significantly double domed crystal (the case without the crystal is 12.7mm thick), but perhaps most impressive is the lug-to-lug measurement of just 44.3mm thanks to those short lugs. And while the space between the lugs looks large, it’s only about 20mm. The crystal is surrounded by a thin fluted unidirectional black aluminium bezel. It also has two scales - a prominently large 60 minute scale that you can use for timing and a tiny printed 12-hour scale that you could use to keep track of a second time zone. Water resistance is pretty good for a chrono - 200 meters.

While the case is pretty awesome, the dial is an absolute showstopper. It takes a familiar chronograph layout and almost literally flips it upside down. The dial still has two sub-dials, but they are positioned at the 9 and 12 o’clock position, not only freeing up the 3 o’clock position for the date aperture, but also for a pretty unique look. The dial follows the original closely, and that original was designed by legend Jean Singer, the man who designed the Speedmaster Racing, Heuer Skipper and Paul Newman Daytona dials. And you can see those influences here. The base of the dial is grained and black, has a tachymeter scale on the outskirts and the sub-dials have a gold-brown finish to them. The applied indexes on the dial are filled with lume, just like the hands, and you can chose between white or yellow Super-LumiNova.

Inside, a movement that’s pretty much universally adored. It’s the very well known Valjoux 7750, a cam-style chronograph movement that beats at 4Hz and has a 42 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a stainless steel bracelet, but knowing Nivada, it will be offered on a range of different straps.

The Nivada Grenchen Chronosport 38mm goes on pre order on July 25th and will be available for a month. Everybody who gets one in the pre-order window will get a numbered watch, after which the watch will go into regular, unnumbered, production. Delivery is expected in October. Price is set at €2,035. See more on the Nivada Grenchen website.

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Bravur Shows Once Again That They Are Best At Cycling Watches With Tour de France-Themed La Grande Boucle IV

Last week I wrote about the Tissot PR100 Tour De France which was, as the name would suggest, it was a Tissot dedicated to one of the most important bicycle races in the world. And it was a bit… underwhelming. Despite Tissot being an official timer for the Tour de France, it seemed like a bit of a low-effort watch. If you wanted a truly great cycling-inspired watch, especially one that’s TdF-themed, you might want to be looking at Swedish watch brand Bravur. This is their new La Grande Boucle IV (the nickname for the Tour deFrance) and it really is fantastic.

The watch comes in a classically styled round chronograph case with elongated lugs and square pushers on the side. The case comes in untreated stainless steel (the watch is pictured above with La Grande Boucle III which comes in a black ceramic coated case) and measures 38mm wide, 14.4mm thick and has a lug-to-lug of 46.3mm. The lug width is 18mm. On top is a domed sapphire crystal and out back is a flat one. On top is a super thin bezel with a thin black insert with no numerals, just has marks every 5 minutes.

The dial is very much full of references to the TdF. The base is frosted white and has dot markers, reminiscent of the legendary polka dot patterns found on the King of the Mountains jersey, awarded to the race’s top climber. Another nod to the race is found on the chapter ring, with a printed 13, inverted as a good luck charm for racers. The central chrono hand an the sub-dial at the 3 o’clock position are done in yellow to mimic the yellow shirt the winner of each stage of the Tour wears.

Inside, you’ll find the SW511b automatic movement from Sellita which beats at 4Hz and has a 62 hour power reserve. The watch comes on one of four strap options - a stainless steel Milanese mesh bracelet, a black FKM rubber, a yellow FKM rubber or a perforated leather strap.

The new Bravur La Grande Boucle IV is available now and the watch is priced at €2,550. See more on the Bravur website.

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The New Czapek Complicité Place Vendôme Stardust Cobalt Refreshes The Double Regulator

Last year during Geneva Watch Days, Czapek & Cie unveiled a watch they were working on with German master watchmaker Bernhard Lederer. They took the Czapek Quai des Bergues and Place Vendôme, but instead of placing subdials at 7.30 and 4.30 , the new Complicité replaced them with independent balance wheels. The dial had a pyramidal composition, with the double escapements and a differential connecting them located at 12 o’clock, which put Czapek into the elite circle of dual regulator producers. Now, they are slightly redesigning the watch into something that looks even more elegant.

Te watch comes in a case made out of 18k white gold that measures 41.8mm wide and 13.3mm thick. It’s nicely sculpted with hollowed-out lugs and a sandblasted internal case. The outside of the case is completely polished, making for a pretty nice contrast. Water resistance is 50 meters.

Underneath the sapphire crystal is an openworked dial that gives a look at the movement, the regulators and the differential gear at the 12 o’clock position. This new version has a circular-grained grey minutes and hours flange with applied heat-blued indices and hands. The hands are sword-shaped and the differential gear at noon is secured under a transparent sapphire crystal bridge with six rubies set in gold chatons.

The point of a double escapement regulator is to achieve greater accuracy, as two balance wheels beating independently and power being delivered from a single barrel via a differential would cancel out variations in beat rates. And this is exactly what the manual-winding calibre 8 does. The movement beats at 3Hz and has a 72 hour power reserve, with an indicator at 6 o’clock. The watch comes on a black alligator strap.

The new Czapek Place Vendôme Complicité Stardust Cobalt is limited to 13 pieces and sells for €89,000. See more on the Czapek website.

🫳On hand

Our selection of the best reviews we stumble upon

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A review of the Yema Skin Diver Slim CMM.20 Limited Edition

2/

Hands on with the TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300 Date

3/

A review of the H. Moser & Cie. Pioneer Centre Seconds Concept Citrus Green

⚙️Watch Worthy

A look at an off beat, less known watch you might actually like

The Echo/Neutra Averau 39 Moon Phase “Big Moon” is a great example of how to get the best out of relatively standard componentry

The second aspect of this design that is notable is the colour of the dial. Although the dial looks like a standard white display, it is actually fully luminous and glows a vivid blue at night. What’s pleasing about this is the crispness of the printing on the fully luminous surface (something even the finest brands in our industry have managed to make a mess of in the past), and the whiteness of the dial during daylight hours. It doesn’t seem to have a distracting hue at all. It is simply a legible, understated visage until the lights get low. At that point, it comes to life.

Read the whole review on Watch Gecko

⏲️Wait a minute

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• Kai Höss was 14 when he learnt that his grandfather, as he puts it, accurately, “killed more people than any other man in human history”. Come on, what a story!

• While there are certainly technically better Kubrick movies, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb holds a very special place in my heart. The over-the-top humour was always the selling point for me. Only, I recently stumbled on this article from the Atlantic from 2014 that teaches us that it wasn’t exactly over-the-top. In fact, it turns out that everything in the movie is actually true.

• In October of last year, Free Press reporter Francesca Block came across a fascinating tip in her inbox. It told the story of Allan Kassenoff and Catherine Youssef, a couple of New York City litigators who married in 2006. It was a tempestuous union, which resulted in three daughters, and ended with a series of terrible abuse allegations. Allan finally filed for divorce in May 2019, triggering a brutal custody battle that remains infamous in the courts of New York. It was still ongoing when, just over a year ago, Allan received a horrifying email—Catherine had traveled to Switzerland where she would die by assisted suicide. But death did not part the Kassenoffs. When Francesca started digging into their story, she found that nothing was as it seemed.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Yes, I am very likely boring you with RocketPoweredMohawk videos, but I will be posting every new one he releases just to be sure you don’t miss them. Enjoy and you’re welcome!

💵Pre-loved precision

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• SOLD: Well, not really new. It’s a great looking mid-90s Tudor Submariner 75090, offered for sale by a member of the It’s About Time reader crew. I love the way it looks and seems to be in great condition. Check it out over on Chrono24.

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-Vuk