Timeline  /  The first modular automatic chronograph
1969

The first modular automatic chronograph

Heuer, Breitling, Hamilton-Büren and Dubois Dépraz built Calibre 11 by adding a chronograph module to a thin self-winding movement.

Heuer Autavia reference 1163 with the Chronomatic Calibre 11
A Heuer Autavia reference 1163 with Calibre 11, one of the watches launched with the movement.Photograph: EMore98 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The need
Chronographs were hand-wound; the market wanted a self-winding one, and the Swiss makers wanted it first.
Made by
A consortium, codenamed Project 99 and formed in 1966: Heuer-Leonidas and Breitling, with Hamilton-Büren supplying the automatic base and Dubois Dépraz the chronograph module.
What was new
A modular build: Büren’s thin micro-rotor movement with a separate chronograph module mounted on it.
Worth knowing
The stacking put the crown on the left of the case and the pushers on the right, the signature of the Heuer Monaco, Autavia and Carrera and the Breitling Chrono-Matic. Announced on 3 March 1969 in Geneva and New York; in shops from about July.

Historian’s noteCalibre 11 is modular, not integrated, and it reached shops after Seiko’s 6139 had gone on sale in Japan. Its claim is the first automatic chronograph sold internationally.

SourcesTAG Heuer

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