Keeping pace
The new Breitling Endurance Pro sports watch is inspired by a piece from the Seventies, designed with decisively 21st-century mechanics and materials
Geneva Watch Days, which took place from August 26-29, was the first major watch exhibition to be held within Switzerland this year. There were 17 brands which participated in the decentralised self-managed event which included the likes of Bulgari, Girard-Perregaux, MB&F, Ulysse Nardin and Breitling.
Breitling didn’t wait until August to release its pieces though. Instead, it began showcasing them as early as April this year through an online Summit Webcast. By the time the lockdowns began to be lifted across the world in May and June, it was ready for some of its novelties including the Chronomat, Navitimer 35 and Superocean Heritage ’57 Capsule Collection to be shipped to its boutiques around the world.
However, Breitling showed up at Geneva Watch Days with an ace up its sleeve – the all-new Endurance Pro timepiece that falls within the professional category of its watches (with timepieces such as the Emergency, Aerospace and Cockpit for company). The new 44mm Endurance Pro timepiece was a result of a collaboration with German triathlete Jan Frodeno who won gold at the 2008 Summer Olympics and is also a three-time winner of the Ironman World Championship.
“When Jan Frodeno first became a member of our Triathlon Squad, he asked me what Breitling he should wear. We started brainstorming about the perfect sporty lifestyle watch and that conversation led to the development of the Endurance Pro,” said Breitling CEO Georges Kern.
Breitling dug into its archives when conceptualising the Endurance Pro – specifically the Breitling Sprint from the 1970s. That timepiece – which in the Seventies cost around CHF190 – featured a pulsometer, a Valjoux 7733 manual winding movement and a case made from resin to reduce the weight of the watch.
Skip to 2020, and for the Endurance Pro, Breitling has used its proprietary Breitlight material that is, as the watchmaker explains, 3.3 times lighter than titanium and 5.8 times lighter than stainless steel. Cementing the Pro’s position as a sports watch, Breitlight is resistant to scratches and corrosion, besides being nonmagnetic, hypoallergenic and thermally stable.
The chronograph is fitted with a quartz movement, but not just an ordinary one. Instead, it features a Breitling Caliber 32 SuperQuartz movement that’s 10 times more accurate than a conventional quartz movement. To ensure that it really is as accurate as it claims to be, the Endurance Pro – like every watch from Breitling – is a COSC-certified chronometer too.
The chronograph features a bidirectional rotating bezel and a dial that displays a small-seconds subdial, as well as 1/10th and 30-minute chrono counters, with the hands coated in SuperLuminova. There’s a tachymeter on the outer bezel and a pulsometer on the inner one – the colour of which matches the Diver Pro rubber strap on the timepiece. You can have it in five hues: White, blue, yellow, orange and red.
You can even have it with a NATO strap. Two years ago, Breitling collaborated with Outerknown, an American sustainable clothing company founded by surfing champion Kelly Slater, which recycles discarded fishing nets to create the Econyl yarn that is then used to make these NATO straps.
Global crisis or not – Breitling isn’t on standby mode.