Pilot Classic

Pilot Classic is the line most directly linked to Zeno-Watch Basel's military watchmaking tradition, whose roots go back to 1920, when the La Chaux-de-Fonds manufacture founded by Jules Godat came under the control of A. Eigeldinger & Fils and began producing wristwatches in steel, silver, gold and platinum, also intended for the armed forces. It was in these same years, in 1922, that the brand adopted the Zeno name.

In the current catalogue, the model that most explicitly tells of this link is the Pilot Classic Wehrmachts Navigator, a limited edition of 500 pieces that takes up the look of observation watches — the so-called "Wehrmacht watches" — typical of mid-20th-century German military aviation: a clean dial, highly legible indices and hands, and a compact 40 mm case. The model is fitted with a vintage Unitas manual movement, assembled from a base produced in 1970, a detail that makes explicit the thread linking today's piece to the watchmaking history it tells.

Compared with the sporty and oversized lines developed by the brand since the late 1990s, the Pilot Classic keeps more compact dimensions and a hand-wound layout, remaining the most faithful testimony in the Zeno-Watch Basel catalogue to the instrument and military origins of the brand's pilot watchmaking.