REVIEW: Hands On With The Breitling Chronomat B01 42 Australian Limited Edition

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As part of the 140th Anniversary celebrations, Breitling has released a limited edition Chronomat 42 just for the Australian and New Zealand market, with 140 pieces available. As an Australian publication, we just had to get our hands on it!

Breitling’s Chronomat has been around for a little while, 82 years in fact, and the original watch resembled a Navitimer more than the modern Chronomat we know today. In fact, the Chronomat was Brerilting’s first slide rule watch and was designed for mathematicians to do complex calculations with the watch – hence the original name CHRONOgraph for MAThematicians, Chronomat. At the time, is was a world first, and what Breitling dubbed, the worlds first “Smart Watch”. It’s a nice play on words and back in 1942, it was revolutionary and was one of Willy Breilting’s most loved products.

However, the modern Chronomat as we know it today doesn’t date back as far, nor does it stand for Chronograph for mathematicians. In 1983, Breitling, under Ernest Schneider’s leadership, designed a watch in conjunction with the Frecce Tricolori, Italy’s jet display team (similar to the Blue Angels). Bucking the quartz trend, this watch was a mechanical automatic chronograph with a Rouleaux bracelet and rotating bezel with large rider tabs to make it easy for the pilots to use. The following year, this watch was released commercially but with a new name, the Chronomat. Whilst the name “Chronomat” wasn’t new, this version was a new incarnation of the name, this time being an amalgamation of the words chronograph and automatic. It became an instant classic and hit with collectors and watch enthusiasts alike. For those fans of ’90s sitcoms, Jerry Seinfeld was quite often seen wearing his Chronomat on screen, along with other Breitling pieces.

So it’s no surprise that for Breitling’s 140th Anniversary, they’ve brought out a limited-edition Chronomat, and here in Australia, we’re lucky to get this as a regional edition, only available in Australia and New Zealand, and 140 pieces of course! Given it is a local special edition, we had to go hands-on with it…

RELATED READING: Breitling Introduces Their 140th Anniversary Collection

First Impressions

As I have just written, the Chronomat is not a new watch for Breitling. Having been around for 40 years in their modern incarnation, I’m pretty familiar with the models and their looks, design codes etc. I’ve also tried on numerous models over the years and had a decent play around with them, so again, holding the new Breitling Chronomat Australian Limited Edition in my hand felt somewhat familiar. The case hasn’t changed a lot over the years, and the Chronomat is famous for its longer reverse-onion crown (as I call it), the bezel and rider tabs to make it easy to grip and turn, and on this piece, the Rouleaux style rubber strap, taking the place of the steel Rouleaux bracelet looks great and is super flexible.

What stands out to me is the dial – done in an “Arctic White” and contrasted with the black sub-dial registers, the watch looks fresh and the white dial gives it that super clean look. The case isn’t overly big, and putting it on my wrist for the first time, felt pretty good – so far, so good! I had this piece for just over a week, so I had time to get used to it, and wear it out and about a fair bit, and for a few days, replaced my normal daily piece.

The Design

The overall design of the Chronomat has evolved over the years as all models do, but with the Chronomat, whilst there are subtle changes as a product of its evolution, very little has actually changed when looking at it as an overall piece. This is one thing that I like about the watch industry and certain brands – their ability to evolve without deviating too much from what made the selected watch iconic in the first place. The one thing that is noticeable when you look at the overall design is how Breitling has cleaned up the appearance with less clutter on the dial and the bezel. Gone are the notches on the bezel that were found in the original and up to the mid-2000s, as are the etched numerals. Instead, you now have a cleaner looking bezel, high polished and with the numbers at 3, 6 and 9 on the rider tabs.

The dial was what caught my attention when I first viewed this and its sister piece in Sydney a few months ago. The dial, which Breitling calls “Arctic White” looks great on the Chronomat. White dials always look good, and if done right, have that silky smoothness to them, which this does. It isn’t a lacquer dial, but gives off that impression almost, so Breitling has done a good job here. The tachymeter scale runs the circuit of the outer dial, again, assisting to keep the bezel easy to use and less cluttered, and the applied hour markers with steel and Super-LumiNova add depth to the dial, also allowing for better legibility in the day time without losing them due to being plain white with a white dial.

Recessed into the dial are the three black circular-grained sub-dials which track the minutes and hours for the chronograph at 3 and 6 o’clock, and the small seconds at 9 o’clock. Rather than being a full dial with the circular graining, Breitling has opted to keep the outer third smooth, and the inner two-thirds grained to give it a little more texture here. These little details all add up, as does the stepped rehaut with the aforementioned tachymeter and minute percentage scale.

The Breitling Chonomat Australian Edition’s case design aids the way the case wears, which I will talk about in the next section of the review. Yes, the watch is 15.1mm thick, but the main case is actually quite a bit smaller, with almost half of the thickness being taken up by the screwed case back, bezel and crystal, which you can see in the images below. The crown is done in the curved reverse onion style, and the chronograph pushers are now flatter thanks to the re-design of it back in 2020. This modernises the watch a little more and fits with the overall aesthetic of the piece.

With this version of the Chronomat, Breitling has given the watch the rubber version of the Rouleaux bracelet. It’s not individual links like the steel, but the design look and feel do justice to it. It comes equipped with a steel folding push button clasp that is combined with a pin buckle. This set-up does two things: The first allows you the convenience of quickly slipping it on and doing it up without hassles, and the second is if you need to adjust the sizing, it’s as easy as your normal pin buckle set-up. Best of both worlds.

How It Wears

The Breitling Chronomat Australian Edition is more sports watch than anything else, but it is more of an elegant sports watch that you can dress up or down depending on your style. The combination of brushed and high polish surfaces gives it more class, the rubber Rouleaux strap brings it back into the less formal arena, but from a distance as other people would see it, you could get away with this in a dress shirt or a suit.

On the wrist, I feel the Chronomat wears fairly true to size for the most part. Being 42mm in diameter and 50.5mm lug-to-lug, its in that ‘not too large’ range for me on my 17.5cm wrist. As I touched on before, 15.1mm thick is not a slim watch, but the case design seems to allow this to be thinner on the wrist due to not having a huge amount of flat surfaces to draw your eye to. As I’ve said many times, the way a watch looks on the wrist can be very different to the numbers on paper and what they would suggest.

The strap is super comfortable thanks to the rubber and design. The Rouleaux style strap means the faux rivets give it a little more flexibility than a standard flat rubber strap and as a result, it really hugs the wrist nicely. In all honesty, it’s one of the better rubber straps I’ve worn in recent times. I mentioned in my review of the Breitling 140th Edition Super Chronomat a few weeks ago the same rubber strap didn’t hold the watch properly on the wrist unless done up tight due to the size and weight of the 18k rose gold. This isn’t the case here as the smaller case and steel means the weight of the case and proportions of the strap – case-to-strap ratio if you will, is a lot better here.

RELATED READING: Hands On With The Breitling Super Chronomat Perpetual Calendar 140th Anniversary

The one aspect that I am not a fan of is the way the strap is reversed on the watch, threading through towards the body, not away like conventional straps are. This isn’t new, and definitely not unique to Breitling or this watch as it seems to be more of a trend recently. The main reason is the strap has a tendency to catch pockets as you walk and your arms pass by your body. Look, it could just be me, but it seems to happen a bit with this style of strap. The simple solution is to flip the strap around if you don’t mind the clasp being the other way.

As it’s coming into summer here, actually given the past few weeks, I think it is here already with the warmer and humid weather being a daily occurrence, the rubber strap held up well in the weather, not getting too hot or sweaty and with minimal movement on the wrist as well. With this style of strap buckle, there isn’t a micro-adjust at all, very few folding clasps like this have one, but you could always pair this with a different strap with the folding clasp with micro-adjust.

Outside of this, reading the time when on the wrist is quick and easy thanks to the dial design I mentioned previously, and the ergonomics of the watch seem balanced, making it easy to operate the chronograph function and bezel while on the wrist. I will say that the blue anti-reflective coating does become visible outside a bit, which depending on your personality can be a little annoying or not. I didn’t love this fact, but it’s not a deal breaker in any way for me.

The Movement

Inside of the Breitling Chronomat Australian Edition beats the heart of the Breitling Calibre B01 Chronograph movement. This is an in-house developed and manufactured calibre with a 70 hour power reserve, 47 jewels and a 4hz beat rate / 28,800 VpH and like all Breitling movements, COSC certified. This was a calibre that was developed in 2009 by Breitling, and the first that Breitling had brought out in the modern era. As Breitling has always been synonymous with chronograph movements, it made complete sense that in the modern era and moving into their own in-house calibres, Breitling would produce a chronograph as their first – a tribute to the chronographs that set Breitling apart back in the 1930s.

Via the display case back, you can see the movement is nicely finished and partially open-worked to showcase more of the movement. The Côtes de Genève on the rotor stands out as it does on the top bridges, and underneath, you can see the balance, column wheel and clutch along with the gears in the gear train. It’s a nicely finished movement and what you would expect from the price point.

Operationally, I found the chronograph pushers a little stiff, so starting the chronograph was a little easier off the wrist, but I find with brand-new watches, this can sometimes be the case. Once started, however, the stop and reset mechanism felt nice to operate with just enough resistance so you didn’t accidentally stop the timing function.

Setting the time and date is a breeze with the screw-down crown, the usual positions changing the date in position 1 and the time in position 2. The date sits at 6 o’clock inside the chronograph hour sub-dial, and it is very unobtrusive, almost to the point it blends in and you have to look twice for it. This will be music to those people’s ears who don’t love a date window on the watch, ruining the balance or aesthetics. However, this placement doesn’t detract either for people like me who prefer a date. This being said, the crown shape did make it a little tricky to screw back in as I felt it was slightly harder for a conventional crown to grip properly and push and screw in at the same time. I don’t have large fingers by any stretch, but again, those with smaller fingers will probably find it a little easier to manipulate.

RELATED READING: Breitling Celebrates Their 140 Years & Heritage Exhibition In Melbourne

Final Thoughts

Breitling has several iconic models in its current catalogue, and when choosing what models to help it celebrate its 140th Anniversary, would have been a hard one. As Breitling CEO Georges Kern stated when the 140th Edition Collection was released at Geneva Watch Days, Breitling couldn’t just do one model, so they chose three. With regards to those three models, the standard Chronomat didn’t get a start, instead opting for the larger Super Chronomat 44 model thanks to the Perpetual Calendar and skeletonised dial. So it’s great to see that the Chronomat 42 got the celebratory treatment in the form of the Australian Limited Edition.

Speaking to people about this particular model, and something we at Watch Advice have debated as well, there was mixed sentiment over the design and what made it Australian. We’ve quite often seen limited editions for countries, regions or even clubs and publications done, in fact, they are done all the time. Sometimes there are very evident design cues, colours and references to the collaboration or limited edition, which in all honesty can be met with criticism if not done well. Other times, there are no real references at all, just slight changes to the watch and then sold exclusively as a limited edition. Which way is correct? Well, this is the debate and I would say there’s no right or wrong answer here! In this case, the Arctic White dial with black sub-dials is the design change, not being found in any other Chronomat 42 or Super Chronomat 44. There is no reference to Australia at all, colour-wise or even on the case back, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll elaborate…

Personally, I don’t mind this. I’ve seen collaborations and limited editions done badly with inclusions of logos, colourways that don’t match the watch’s overall design, motifs that detract from the watch, large writing over a display caseback that hides the movement, the list goes on. For the Breitling Chronomat Australian Edition, the uniqueness comes in the form of the Arctic White dial. It is a unique colour for the region, only sold here, and the colour in no way detracts from the watch at all. So in my eyes, it’s a good move. Would it have been nice to include “Australian Edition” written on the caseback somewhere? I think so, as it would have given it a little more regional relevance without detracting from the overall piece. However, not having it doesn’t detract from it either.

Overall, it’s a good-looking watch and wears true to the way it should. I enjoyed wearing this piece around for the time I had it, and it does to a point fly under the radar, but still has a little wrist presence with the white dial and the polished surfaces. As Breitling states, this is their all-round everyday watch. My final point is the price – Kudos to Breitling for pricing this piece exactly the same as the rest of the Chronomat 42 Chronograph range. At A$12,190 it sits within the range of other mid-range luxury chronographs out there such as the IWC Pilot’s Watch, the Omega Speedmaster and even Breilting’s own Navitimer. There is a second version of this piece, on steel with a diamond set bezel for those who want a little more bling and something even more unique, but for those people looking for a well-built chronograph, that has a little bit of exclusivity to it, the Breitling Chronomat B01 42 Australian Limited Edition is a great option!

Reference: Chronomat B01 42 Australian Limited Edition – AB01344B1A1S1

Specification:

• Dimensions: 42mm diameter x 15.1mm thick and 50.5mm lug-to-lug
• Case Material: Brushed and polished stainless steel
• Dial: “Arctic White” metallic dial with black sub-dials and Super-LumiNova filled hands and indices
• Movement: In-house Calibre B01 chronograph movement beating at 28,800 VpH (4hZ) and COSC-certified
• Power reserve: 70hrs
• Water resistance: 200m (20 ATM)
• Crystal: Cambered sapphire, glare-proofed on both sides
• Case back: Screwed stainless steel with display sapphire crystal
• Bracelet/Strap: Black Rouleaux rubber strap with stainless steel folding clasp and pin buckle system

Australian RRP: A$12,190

Availability: Limited to 140 pieces. Available through Breitling Boutiques and at Breitling.com

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