History

[koimaster]

copied from TZ but I cannot provide a direct link.

History and Miscellaneous


What is the history of Breitling?

The "G. Leon Breitling" firm was founded in Saint-Imier, Switzerland in 1884 by Leon Breitling. Leon Breitling started out inventing and creating complicated watches, chronographs and special measuring instruments. He moved his company to La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1892 where he built a full-fledged factory. At this time, the company was renamed to "Leon G. Breitling S.A. Montbrillant Watch Manufactory" and had 60 employees.
After much success, Leon Breitling passed away in 1914 and his son Gaston inherited the business. Gaston knew that Breitling's specialty and biggest seller was the chronograph, and he set out to develop this market further. His first big accomplishment, the Vitesse chronograph, was enthusiastically used by police authorities, the military and governments.

During World War I, Gaston grew the brand outside of the closed European markets. He continued to invent new chronograph models with special time-event scales on the dials. Gaston Breitling died in 1927 and the Breitling firm was without leadership until 1932 when his son Willy stepped in.

Willy Breitling developed the aircraft chronograph and made Breitling famous worldwide. Breitling signed a contract with the British Air Ministry and started making chronographs for the Royal Air Force. People associate Breitling with aviation largely because of this contract and the success it brought the company. Many more contracts were subsequentially signed with aircraft manufacturers and airlines. Pilots took notice and acknowledged the great quality of Breitling's chronographs.

Willy Breitling was also responsible for one of Breitling's most famous inventions, the slide rule bezel. The first watch to include this feature was the Chronomat. By 1946, Breitling manufactured about 250 different models in six categories. Obviously, they included their famous chronographs. In addition, Breitling now also offered waterproof watches.

In 1952, Willy moved the company's headquarters to Geneva, while production remained in La Chaux-de-Fonds. The company had now abandoned in-house movement manufacturing and relied on suppliers such as Venus. This saved cost and allowed Breitling to focus on its main strength: designing and refining their special dials.

The same year also saw the introduction of Breitling's most famous model, the Navitimer. Flight and rally calculations could be made with this wrist-worn navigational instrument and it was a huge hit with pilots around the world. The famous Cosmonaute, a 24-hour dial Navitimer, was introduced in 1962. It went into space on Lt. Commander Scott Carpenter's wrist.

Time magazine wrote of the Navitimer in 1957: "The firm of Leon Breitling introduces a new stopwatch that is intended for engineers and technicians, and is equipped with a calculator as well as three hands for time and speed measurements." Around the same time, the Super Ocean diver's watch was introduced. The trendy Top-Time was introduced in the early 1960s.

In cooperation with Heuer-Leonidas, Hamilton-Buren and Dubois et Depraz, Breitling introduced in 1969 the new Chronomat. It was an automatically winding chronograph, something that took 500,000 Swiss francs to construct. This movement, marketed by Breitling as Caliber 11, was nothing short of a Swiss watch industry sensation.

As the quartz revolution began, Breitling reluctantly introduced a quartz version of the Chronomat in 1975. It was manufactured alongside their mechanical varieties. A quartz Navitimer followed the next year. Adjusting to the new quartz technology was a difficult, if not impossible, task for Breitling and in 1979 the Breitling firm was voluntarily closed by Willy Breitling. He had become ill and passed away the same year. The inventory went to the family, but Ron Geweniger of Chicago purchased half of it.

100 years of watchmaking and Breitling tradition was not about to vanish off the face of the Earth, however. In 1979, the Breitling name was taken over by Ernest Schneider of the Sicura firm in Grenchen. Willy Breitling's two sons, Gregory and Alain, were too young to take over the business.

Schneider reaffirmed to the public that Breitling was worthy of their confidence. He showed them that the original philosophy was unchanged and that special focus was, as always, given to the flying sports. A pilot himself, Schneider conferred with other pilots and introduced the Jupiter, Pluton and Mars chronographs in 1980. The market at this time wanted electronic watches, so these watches had quartz movements.

Times were changing again in the early 1980s; the mechanical watch was making a comeback. In 1984, Breitling introduced its first mechanical chronograph since the death of Willy Breitling. It was, like the 1942 model, to be called the Chronomat. 1986 saw the comeback of the 1950s-style Navitimer. Watches catering to sailors were also introduced at this time. Breitling had re-emerged as the indisputable champion of "Instruments for Professionals".

Today, Breitling continues its involvement in aviation and all the adventures that it entails. The "Breitling World Cup of Aerobatics" was introduced in 1993 and is recognized by the Federation Aeronatique Internationale as having the same status as a world championship. Breitling also had enormous success with the Breitling Orbiter 3, the first balloon to fly around the world. In the year 2000, Breitling inaugurated its new headquarters in Grenchen.

Also see the Milestones section on Breitling's official Web site.

Who owns Breitling?

Breitling is independently owned by the Schneider family who purchased the name from Willy Breitling in 1979. The Schneider family is paying close attention to the ideas, values and visions of Leon, Gaston and Willy Breitling.

[GJ]

Nice thread Koimaster, thanks for posting...

[visionaryct]

Thats a nice article, but leon is worth more than one paragraph:

It was in the tiny village of St Imiers, Switzerland that 24 year old Leon Breitling started the Breitling watch company in 1884. The village was in the Jura Mountains, at certain times of the year the only access was on skis and snowshoes. Leon Breitling was a certified watch maker at the age of 19. He started his career at age 6.
Yes, 6.
His parents where farmers. However like most people living in St Imiers in the 1870’s they worked at home building clock parts. The local factories where small, and to increase the size and heat would have been very expensive, plus due to the weather and poor roads, many workers would have failed to make it in to work every day.
The Breitling family had watch parts delivered, where they cut, painted and assembled small parts. Leon was fascinated in the art of clock manufacturing. Whenever his father would go to the local factories, Leon always went along. Whenever new items that the Breitling family had not seen before to be assembled or machined, Leon would often play sick so he could stay off school and work on the clock parts. At 15 he went to work in a watch factory.
Leon Breitling’s first tiny factory started producing Chronographs and Precision counters for scientific and industrial purposes. Leon used home workers to help produce parts, just as he and his family had done. Many of these Leon had known over the years, or he had either met them at Church, or at the local clock companies Christmas party. The workers respected Leon; he was after all one of them. Leon valued his work force and at the beginning tried to visit many of them. This way he could demonstrate the precision and quality of workmanship he wanted.
Leon invested all his savings into his small company, many weeks he went without any income from selling his clocks and watches. He had to personally ask his cottage workforce to continue unpaid until the sales came through. He worked from 4am to 11pm for over 3 years building his company. At times he had to personally deliver items to his cottage workers; on occasion on foot many miles through snow covered lanes.
His workforce respected Leon Breitling and produced components for him unpaid until he had sold his products. It only happened twice at the start of his company that he could not afford to meet labor costs. However eventually all his workers where paid plus they all received a bonus for their help.
Included in the Chronographs made were instruments for cars and later Gliders. 1891 saw German Otto Lilienthal fly more than 165 ft in his glider. His glider had a tiny wind counter, made by Leon Breitling. Lilienthal was known as the father of aviation. This was forgotten when some 11 years later the American Wright brothers flew ‘The flyer’ due to the hatred of the Germans in the early 1900’s, Otto Lilienthals flight seems to have been forgotten. Like the Wrights. Otto Lilienthal worked with his brother Gustav Lilienthal. But ask yourself, when you think about the birth of aviation you would never think of the Lilienthal Brothers?

[Scott D]

Great info guys! Thanks!