Track And Trace

How Tudor’s development of a complication is mirroring its own growth as a brand

- Jamie Tan

Tudor offers a diverse and balanced range of timepieces, but it remains best known for its sports watches. From vintage icons like the Submariner to contemporary ones such as 2019’s Black Bay Bronze, the brand has built a rich legacy of tough, dependable tool watches. The quintessential complication in this segment is obviously the chronograph, which Tudor is intimately familiar with. After all, 2020 marks the 50th year that Tudor has been producing them.

The Newest Chapter

The latest major update to Tudor’s chronographs came in 2017 with the Black Bay Chrono, which marked a surprise – and welcome – extension of the Black Bay collection. Ticking within it is the MT5813 calibre, a tweaked version of the B01 chronograph movement supplied by Breitling in a partnership between the two brands. As Breitling’s in-house movement, calibre B01 has proven itself to be a workhorse since 2009. The movement is vertically coupled and uses a column wheel for its chronograph’s actuation, with COSC certification and a longish 70-hour power reserve to boot. The return to a bi-compax layout and the design’s focus on simplicity and legibility, however, offers a counterpoint to the technical step forward in Tudor’s chronograph line-up by nodding at the heritage that was first established in 1970 with the “Homeplate” (see opposite).

TUDOR CHRONOGRAPHS

The Alpha