In 1969 Zenith launched the El Primero, the World’s first automatic chronograph. Then quartz arrived and the Swiss industry collapsed! In 1975 Zenith’s American owners ordered every El Primero press, mould and plan scrapped and sold for the weight of the steel. Charles Vermot, the foreman at Zenith who had built chronographs his whole life, carried 150 presses and every technical drawing up to the attic of the Zenith factory, hid them behind a wall he bricked and told nobody. Nine years later Rolex were looking for a movement for a new automatic Daytona to replace the struggling 6263/6265. The Zenith engineers said the they would have to make and design a movement from scratch, but Charles took them upstairs and broke down his false wall. The redesigned El Primero went through 200 changes including lowering the solitude from 36,000 VPH to 28,800, and it powered the all new Rolex 16520, the Daytona model that created the first public waiting list in watches. Every El Primero made...