As planned, they backed up their claim by presenting hundreds of working watches, demonstrating serial production, or industrial, capability. Heuer and its partners held to their schedule, making their announcement at Basel in March. Then in January, 1969, Zenith announced its El Primero. By that time, they would have enough working prototypes to demonstrate serial-production capability. The collaboration developed a movement, and planned to announce it at the Basel watch show in March, 1969. One of the competitors was Seiko, another was Zenith, and the third was a collaboration involving Heuer, Breitling and Buren.
This set up a competition to see which company would reach the market first. Recognizing the need for an auto-wind chronograph, three companies and consortiums undertook to develop such a movement, none apparently aware of the others’ efforts. When automatic winding wristwatches reached the market, they sold like hotcakes, leaving manual winders languishing on retailers’ shelves. An original Heuer Calibre 11, one of the first automatic chronograph movements.
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