REVIEW OF EBEL 1911 CHRONOGRAPH ref. 1134901

I’m a huge Miami Vice fan. That show really impressed me when I was a kid.

Watching the episodes again from DVD after a long break triggered me to yet another watch purchase. I just HAD to buy the Miami Vice Ebel. Watch people are like alcoholics. They rarely need any sensible reason to feed their addiction. Any excuse will do, even a 35-year old detective show. Another fellow longtime TimeZone UK member came to the rescue and now I own a vintage Ebel Chronograph. The watch was just serviced, and in almost flawless “like new” condition. Thank you Henke!

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Miami Vice was the first TV show that combined rock music, fashion, fast cars and beautiful women into one flashy package. On top of this they even had some very interesting storylines. Episodes like “Death and the Lady”, “Forgive Us Our Debts” and “Out Where The Buses Don’t Run” are TV history. Then there were guest stars like Frank Zappa, Phil Collins, Julia Roberts, Little Richard, amazing atmospheric calypso-themed background music by Jan Hammer and also well… cool watches.

Miami Vice changed television forever and no other TV show had such an impact to popular culture ever before… and no show has since, really.

However, it turned out that both Crockett’s Ferrari Daytona and his Rolex Day-Date were fakes. Obviously when Miami Vice first hit the waves the producers didn’t have an idea how overwhelming success the show was going to be. Initially they had a tight budget and they had to cut the costs in every possible way.

When the show gained enormous international fame, Enzo Ferrari himself was outraged that a fake Ferrari was used and the company eventually agreed to supply two genuine Testarossas for Crockett’s use. Enzo had one condition though. The old Corvette-based Daytona replica had to be blown to bits onscreen before he agreed to hand over the replacements. Director Michael Mann agreed. That fake Daytona explosion made a memorable scene in the episode “When The Irish Eyes Are Crying”. Also the fake Rolex was dropped and was replaced with a Ebel 1911 Sport Classic chronograph.

Crockett initially used this watch with famous “wave-bracelet”.

The Wave-version was later replaced with this newer version with linked, soon-to-be-standard 1911 bracelet (which even BTR still used 20 years later).

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Providing Ebel watches to the Miami Vice team was a genius move by Pierre Alain Blum, who was in the charge of Ebel that time.

As Rick Denney of WUS stated, Ebel’s greatest importance was from the 70’s to the 90’s, when they were one of the most successful watch companies through the Quartz Crisis. By 1986, they were one of the top five most important companies, having established a market for Haut de Gamme quartz watches. They were a full manufacture, with five factories and 500 employees.

And they were family-owned through that time, until 1994. The “quartz-dominated path” was the route taken by the grandson of the founder, starting in the 70’s, and it was spectacularly successful. But they also made mechanical watches, and were the company that saved the Zenith El Primero, and indeed Zenith as a manufacture, with their purchase of movements for the Ebel Sport Classic Chronograph starting in 1982 (the watch in this review). Not to mention that they made the majority of Cartier watches during that period.

Watches turned bigger, more rugged (a’la Panerai, Breitling) and Ebel should have responded to that tidal force in the 90’s. I believe they would have, had they maintained their visionary leadership. But when they were bought by Investcorp in 1994 and when Blum left the following year, that vision came to an end.

And LVMH didn’t want Ebel competing against Zenith and TAG Heuer, so they restricted them from marketing their men’s models or developing a new, more masculine look.

Blum tried to buy Ebel back in 2003, but LVMH shut him out, selling to Movado instead.

But 2007 Ebel actually came out with a comprehensive line of more masculine models: BTR chronograph, GMT and with that same large (44,5mm) case they released watches all the way up to a perpetual calendar chronograph using their exclusive movement.

Review of EBEL BTR Chronograph

Here you can see my BTR Chronograph next to vintage 1911 Chronograph. 44,5mm vs. 39mm. It demonstrates nicely how the contemporary style has moved more and more towards bigger watches. While the design language didn’t change much in 25 years, BTR simply dwarfs the old version.

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The fading of the brand started around a decade ago when the financial investments to the BTR line and massive advertising in the English Premier football keague didn’t bring the sales Ebel was hoping for.

Yes, after downgrading their lineup Ebel is now ranked along with the likes of TAG Heuer. Quality products but they’re not playing in the “big leagues” anymore.

But make no mistake, back in the early 1990’s Ebel 1911 chronograph was more expensive than a Rolex Daytona (which actually used the same movement) and Ebel indeed was among the top watch brands in the world. Actually in my country it cost almost twice as much as the Daytona with same movement back in 1996. Here you can see the prices from a magazine “Tekniikan Maailma” which is a local tech magazine. Prices in Finnish Marks (our old currency before the Euro).

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  Excerpt from Finnish tech magazine Tekniikan Maailma 10/1996.

Now Zenith Daytonas cost fortunes and the Rolex bubble just keeps getting bigger – while these old Ebels can be obtained for around 1.5-3 thousand euros and even the full gold bracelet version for around 4-7 thousand. The prices have certainly hit the rock bottom. These watches have precious metals, great finish, very high quality and typical Ebel attention to details. On top of that these have one of the most legendary automatic chronograph movements in history ticking inside in ultra high beat. For that price. That is just insane!

Either way, just like Omega Seamaster “Bond” looked great on Pierce Brosnan, it was Miami Vice that made me a fan of the Ebel brand. The watch looked so cool on Crockett who was such a cool character when I was a kid. That also triggered my purchase of the Ebel 1911 BTR model later. I also purchased a vintage Sport Classic model for my wife. I really like the brand and their design approach.

The watch I purchased is the two-tone version of this later model. It is equipped with Zenith El Primero chronograph movement, which oscillates at 36.000 bauds per hour. This makes the chronograph second hand movement exceptionally smooth.

As mentioned before, Rolex used this same movement in the Zenith Daytona reference 16520 but removed the date function, downgraded the movement bph to 28.800 and added a Breguet overcoil. I won’t bore you with the technical details. You can read full history of the mighty El Primero here.

History of Zenith El Primero

Zenith El Primero movement. Picture courtesy of FHH Jounal

I admire gold watches but I don’t particularly like to wear them myself. For some reason I’ve always felt uncomfortable with gold. Here you can see my testimonials of Rolex Day-Date and Rolex 16613 two-tone Submariner.

Review of Rolex Day-Date 40mm

Review of Rolex Submariner 16613

Day-Date in precious metals is of course amazing – but in my opinion gold doesn’t suit very well to sports watches, especially to large sports chronographs. What was trendy and fine back in the eighties and nineties can look a bit gaudy and dated in 2021. But the two-tone Sport Classic / 1911 Chronograph is some kind of mix between a sport and a dress watch and I always thought these versions portrayed the rich polished gold components very nicely and still remained tasteful while doing so. Both bezel and the “stripes” on the middle links are solid 18K gold.

Ebel 1911 chronograph diameter is only 39 millimeters which is quite small by today’s standards. But there’s more than meets the eye. The hexagon case shape actually balances it nicely and it doesn’t look so undersized on my wrist in similar fashion as say, the old version of Rolex DateJust does. It wears pretty much similar on the wrist as the Rolex Daytona. As a relatively big wristed guy I also opted for the linked bracelet because while I like the classic wave bracelet, to my eye it makes the watch wear even smaller. Actually I’m positively surprised how well it wears on a larger wrist. The clever hexagon case shape gets the biggest credit for that.

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Every watch enthusiast should have a GMT, a chronograph, a diver (or two) and I always thought a gold watch and a dress(y) watch was also needed in every collection. While Ebel 1911 Chronograph is not a traditional dress watch I guess it’s the closest thing to a dress watch that I personally want to wear.

I’m sure the vintage Ebel 1911 is not for everyone. The design is probably a bit polarizing like TAG Heuer Link. Some people don’t like the bezel screws which are always non-symmetrical on Ebels (and Hublots too). And yes, the two-tone look is not very contemporary. But at least there aren’t any other watches that look like Ebels. These have unique case shape and design.

All in all… just like the two-tone DateJust, Casio calculator watch, TAG Heuer Professional series and Cartier Santos, Ebel 1911 Chronograph is a true 80s icon. It is already a future classic. The purchase prices just don’t show it yet.

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