The Low-Down

2020 marked 50 years of the Tudor chronograph, a story that began with the Homeplate watches in 1970 and was a cornerstone of the brand’s experimental design and innovation for decades. To mark this anniversary, Tudor has reworked its Black Bay Chrono Steel and given it a new dial design and bezel style that harks back to the brands Big Block era. Like the Black Bay Chronos S&G and Dark before, the case has been revisited to make it sleeker on the wrist and the resulting sporty timer will no doubt be a runaway success.

Tudor’s chronographs were initially super-striking designs, in grey and orange and blue and orange colour schemes that epitomised the 1970s sporty styling of chronographs that were inspired by and marketed alongside motor racing. The first series chrono, references 7031 and 7032, got the nickname Homeplate due to its hour marker design but was actually pictured with a rally car and a Porsche 911 in print advertisements of the era. Then in 1971 came the 7100 series with similarly striking dials, nicknamed Monte Carlo by collectors. These watches were big watches for the time at 40mm and were significantly more robust that their cousins over at Rolex.

IMHO

The most important development in the Tudor Chronograph came in 1976, with the introduction of the 9000 series watches and later the 79100 series. These were the first automatic chronographs to come out of the Wilsdorf Stable, 12 years ahead of the Daytona Perpetual. The watches housed automatic movements which necessitated the use of a deeper case, leading to the nickname Big Block. The earliest Big Blocks were fitted with exotic dials, as had been the signature of Tudor chronographs since the introduction in 1970. However, quite quickly the exotic dials made way for Daytona-esque dials in either black or silver with contrasting sub dials; what collectors refer to as panda and reverse-panda layouts. The new Black Bay Chronograph Steel takes the panda and reverse-panda dial layouts and reimagines them for 2021.

The watch also has a new bezel design, that again harks back to the Big Blocks and specifically the 79160 Big Block with black tachymeter bezel. Tudor has always differentiated its references within series by the different bezel types; since the 79100 series Big Blocks this has been 60 for black tachymeter, 70 for rotating 12-hour bezel and 80 for fixed steel tachymeter. So the black tachymeter Small Block watch (the series after the Big Blocks) had reference 79260. I particularly love that this new watch is reference 79360. Maybe one day, hopefully, we’ll get the 79370 and 79380 too!

The 41mm case has had a redesign too, as I mentioned at the top of this piece. The original Black Bay Chrono was very bulky on the wrist and so Tudor remedied this to a large extent by making the rehaut shallower and making the crystal shallower too. This brings the dial closer to the crystal, which also makes the watch look less deep. Tudor fully embraces its heritage roots and for the real vintage-geek the pushers are a true treat. The form closely resembles the Mk1 pushers that were seen on the first Homeplate watches and also the first Oyster cased Daytonas. It’s a small detail but an important one and is further testament to just how seriously Tudor takes its development of watches that whilst have an eye on the rear-view mirror are firmly focused on the current journey and watches that are the perfect fit for 21st century living. Bravo Tudor…again!

Tech Specs