Back during the summer, Glashütte Original introduced two new members of their Seventies Chronograph Panorama Date line. The watches were offered in either “disco blue” or “vibing orange”. Don’t get me started with the names they chose for the colours, but that aside, these were some highly solid and interesting releases from a company that seems to consistently put out great watches and punch well above their weight.
The Seventies line of watches is often overlooked when people discuss the top sports watches on the market. Despite this, I put the Seventies line easily in the top ten of this category, if not the top five. Seventies models are extremely well designed, well built, well finished, and give a lot of bang for their price. Additionally, almost any Seventies on a bracelet or leather strap can expand its use outside of just sport into dress occasions. It’s a little harder to dress these two watches up with their more “out there” colouring, but it could still be tried. The combination of brushed and mirrored metal with the overall refined feel of a Seventies lets the watch tiptoe between sport and dress.
The Seventies Chronograph has a 40x40mm stainless steel TV case with a height of just a little over 14mm and a water resistance of 100m. The dial, available in either colour, is matte lacquered and serves as the backdrop to lumed applied hour markers and hands. The complications of this watch include a flyback chronograph, small seconds, a Panorama date, and a power reserve indicator. If you’re wondering what the little counter is above the central hand stack, it is an hour indicator (up to 12 hours) for the chronograph.
Inside is Glashütte’s in-house cal. 37-02, a 4hz automatic flyback chronograph movement with a column wheel and 70-hour power reserve. Glashütte definitely makes one of the prettier sports watch movements, especially considering the price range. While this is a compliment for Glashütte, this is also myself calling out other watch manufacturers who price their steel chronographs similarly, yet provide the absolute minimum in terms of movement decoration. It’s even more abysmal considering the rate, generally, at which watch prices have risen over the past couple decades, well outpacing inflation, yet the watches themselves don’t seem to improve in line with the price increases. That aside, Glashütte knows they’re putting out a quality product in their movement that their customers want to see, as they have a sapphire exhibition caseback to view the movement through.
Generally, I’m very pleased with this watch. I think mostly all Seventies models hit their marks in terms of design and engineering. While these new models are available on either a bracelet or a strap, I believe the bracelet option is easily the way to go, and while I can see how the orange might be nice, I think the watch to get here is the blue dial version. While it does play in a bit to the “Tiffany blue” trend of the last year or so (which I think we’re finally moving on from… thankfully), the fact that Glashütte has a modern history of creating so many cool new dial colours for their watches, combined with how well-executed this release is, makes me want to go ahead and give them a pass this once.
The Glashütte Original Seventies Chronograph Panorama Date in either disco blue or vibing orange is available on a silicon strap with a folding clasp for 13,700 USD or on a stainless steel bracelet with a butterfly clasp for 14,900 USD. The watch is limited to 100 pieces per colour.
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