For those of you not familiar with the Primero story, Charles Vermot occupies a critical spot in the saga. In 1975, Zenith was owned by american Zenith Electronics who ordered all mechanical movement production stopped and the machine tools to be scrapped. Charles Vermot was the man who saved El Primero from extinction by an act of personal courage and doggedness.

Zenith has posted an 8 minute documentary video (in french) on its website about M. Vermot. It looks to have been made in the late 80s. It is absolutely worth watching -- I am very glad someone thought to get the man on film while they still could.

For non-french speakers, a little summary I wrote up -- think I got most of it

An intro describes the quartz crisis and the return ("resurrection") of mechanical movements as background. M. Vermot appears at 1:08 to comment on quartz movements. The Zenith story begins at 2:03 with the sale to American Zenith. At 2:30 M. Vermot gets introduced as he is pottering in his garden. El Primero gets introduced at 2:44. He was "chef de fabrication des ebauches," "chief of ebauche manufacturing."
2:47 - M. Vermot tells of receiving the order to stop production of the El P.
3:24 - he writes a letter to management to request that the machine tools for the El P be preserved. Denied.
4:12 - the ebauche manufactuiring building is liquidated and sold (interesting that it still has Martel signage on it at the time the video was made - Zenith had bought Martel in 1960).
4:16 - M. Vermot is asked what he did with the machine tools. He talks about again asking permission to store the material, which is refused in a patronizing way, the way he tells it ("little Vermot from Pont de Martel is mired in his swamp. He has to wake up. It is the electronic era!")
5:14 - he starts to hide the material in the attic of the company
5:24 - he tells about the few colleagues who knew what he was up to telling him he was being ridiculous, but insists that he remained confident nonetheless that mechanical movements would one day be popular again.
The narrator values the machine tools he saved at SFr 6 million.
6:26 - Vermot describes being told by new management in 1984 that mechanical movement manufacture is going to resume.
6:38 - the high point of the story (for me) is captured in M. Vermot's choking up, an intense little moment of emotion in response to the question:"Were you happy?" (at the news of the resumption of production)
6:51 - Narrator: "It was your dream coming true" Vermot: "Indeed" He seems close to tears at the memory.
7:06 - Vermot apparently kept careful notes about settings and instructions which allowed the resumption of production much more efficiently than would otherwise have been possible. Narrator: "A dream bolstered by some solid work. Not content with having arranged and labeled the equipment, the diminutive chief of manufacturing had consigned to a binder all the instructions necessary to put it back into function."
7:20 - "Did the new management reward you?" A watch and a banquet.
Sum up follows -- "All the parts were put back in place, production of the chronograph resumed. Today it is the star product of the company"

A great story about character, about a man that people dismissed as insignificant and a little dotty who stuck to his beliefs and lived to see them vindicated.

 

I think they're still in small scale production for racing use in both off-road and track racing, I know there are some replica Ford GT40s made locally in Brisbane that still use new Rover V8s even now.

 

I just bought the newer 4130 Daytona (or agreed to buy, deal made next weekend)

 

My brother actually owns two, a black and a white, and it was seeing his black one after it was freshened up by servicing that made me really want one. Then a good deal popped up so I had to say yes. Its a 2004 model F series with thin hands, excellent condition, box and papers

 

Weren't we supposed to see photos of Scotty's watch when it got back from service? You holding out?

 

Didn't get to take many shots, he genuinely wanted it back immediately after a 12 week wait, but it looked 90% new again. There were some scratches in the PCL that were too deep to remove, and because of that they looked wavy in the polished finish, and some of the links had edge scratches where they also couldn't go deep enough. It was a very good attempt, as good as you could expect for assembly line style servicing, but frankly, I've seen independents do better work than that.

 

Incidentally, just to confirm, the Zenith Daytonas were non-hacking, and I believe the older Zeniths El Primeros were too, has that changed at all recently or are they still the same? Also, is it still the same as most other non-hacking movements where some reverse pressure on the crown will do the job?

 

That's about right. Ebel bought a number of assembled movements that had been sitting in storage at Zenith since 1975 to put into its 1911 chronograph. When that proved to be a success, further orders were placed, providing Zenith with the funds and impetus to unwrap M. Vermot's treasure and put it back into production.

it was only after that that Rolex came onto the scene.

 

Looks like Hodinkee picked up the Charles Vermot story.
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/c...-who-saved-the-el-primero-and-possibly-zenith