Breitling Watches 2024: The Year in Review

Breitling turned 140 years old in 2024, which probably might have made more of a splash in the watch community at large a few years ago, back when Breitling was part of one of the industry’s major international trade shows, the late, (mostly) fondly remembered Baselworld, and could have made the huge announcement there.  Breitling has been doing its own thing for a while, however, spreading its new releases out over the course of the year rather than announcing the majority of them at the spring fairs along with their competitors. While it’s a strategy that has seemed to have worked for the brand under the savvy leadership of Georges Kern, it does make pulling together a “Year in Review” retrospective a bit more involved. 

Poring over releases from 2024 in preparation for this article, I was a bit taken aback to discover that Breitling had been not only very busy, but consistently so — launching at least one new product, or kicking off some new initiative or partnership, nearly every month of the year. Here is a whirlwind tour of Breitling’s 2024 highlights, broken down by product families, and you can judge for yourself whether or not the brand did justice to celebrating its 140th anniversary.

Chronomat:

The Breitling Chronomat NFL Editions, AFC East teams; clockwise from top left: Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills

Breiting kicked off the year (pun obviously intended) with the Chronomat B01 42 Super Bowl LVIII Edition, unveiled ahead of the NFL’s championship game and paying tribute to former Pro Bowl quarterback, CBS “NFL Today” analyst and longtime Breitling ambassador Boomer Esiason. Limited to just 58 pieces — note the Roman numeral above — the watch featured a 42mm case in full 18k rose gold, a dark blue dial with black subdials, and a specially engraved back with the Super Bowl LVIII logo. Proceeds from the sale of all 58 watches were donated to Esiason’s charitable foundation, whose mission is to seek a cure for cystic fibrosis.

Breitling Chronomat NFL Edition for the Kansas City Chiefs

The Super Bowl edition proved to be just a harbinger of the much larger Chronomat release later in September, and arguably Breitling’s most important launch of the year. That would be the Chronomat NFL collection, which I cover in much more detail here — 32 individual references of the Chronomat B01 42 model in steel, one devoted to each NFL team, all limited to 104 pieces, which corresponds to the number of seasons the NFL has played.

Breitling Chronomat "Giannis Antetokounmpo" models

American football wasn’t the only sport that Breitling dabbled in for a special-edition Chronomat this year, however. In June, NBA superstar Giannis “Greek Freak” Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks partnered with the watchmaker for his own personalized Chronomat editions — one a 40mm Chronomat GMT in steel, the other a 42mm Chronomat B01 Chronograph in  gold. Both are limited editions, with the Bucks’ signature “good-land green” used for the dial — 1,750 pieces for the GMT and 250 for the chrono — and both include the All-Star power forward’s “GA” initials on the seconds hand; the chronograph adds a basketball motif on the running seconds counter at 9 o'clock. 

The Chronomat also provided the canvas for two other of Breitling’s numerous partnerships this year. One was with fashion designer Victoria Beckham, who unveiled the fruits of her own creative collaboration with Breitling during February’s New York Fashion Week. The Chronomat Automatic 36 Victoria Beckham watches, a collection limited to 1,500 pieces, are aimed at primarily female audiences, with cases in either steel or yellow gold (the latter is a rarity nowadays for Breitling), and dial colorways echoing the distinctive palette of Beckham’s Spring and Summer ‘24 collections, including peppermint, midnight blue, dove gray, and sand.

Breitling Chronomat B01 Triumph

In June, Breitling took the Chronomat from the runway to the highway, with the latest co-branded model from its partnership with Triumph Motorcycles. The Breitling B01 42 Triumph adopts the sleek, meticulously machined look of the British maker’s storied motorbikes with a titanium case with 18k red gold details, an anthracite-colored dial, and a road-racing-inspired, perforated brown leather strap. Purchasers of Triumph’s Speed Triple 1200 RR Breitling Limited Edition, the motorcycle co-branded with the Swiss watch manufacturer, have the option of also owning one of 270 special “Owner’s Exclusive” numbered editions of the timepiece. 

Navitimer:

Breitling Navitimer 41 Automatics and Navitimer GMT for 2024

Breitling’s most recognizable and historic model, the Navitimer, flew a bit under the radar in 2024 in comparison to the Chronomat. Aside from the 140th Anniversary Edition with the new perpetual calendar movement, which I cover separately below, we saw the release, in March, of several new versions of the Navitimer GMT and Navitimer 41 Automatic. Both are simpler offshoots of the original chronograph-equipped model, and both equipped with the hallmark circular slide-rule bezel that has been a hallmark of the Navitimer since its debut in 1952 as the official watch of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots’ Association (AOPA). Inside the watches’ 41mm cases, in stainless steel, 18k rose gold, and one two-tone version for the Automatic, are outsourced movements: the ETA 2824-based Breitling Caliber 17 in the Automatic, and ETA 2893-2-based Caliber 32 in the GMT. Like the vast majority of movements used in Breitling watches, both are COSC-certified for chronometric performance. The dial color palette ranges from black, blue, and silver to ice blue and green.

Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute Limited Edition for 2024

Perhaps more interesting from a historical perspective is the latest limited-edition release of the Navitimer Cosmonaute, a modern version of the first Swiss watch that went into outer space. Its modified 24-hour dial, to discern daylight from nighttime hours while in orbit, was created by Breitling after a special request from astronaut Scott Carpenter, who wore the original version of the watch on the Mercury Seven mission in May 1962. The new Cosmonaute, limited to 250 pieces, has an 18k red gold case, with a deep green dial and golden-tinted numerals, and comes on a black alligator strap. Its movement is the in-house, automatic Caliber B12, a re-engineered version of the ubiquitous B01 to drive the 24-hour motion of the hands.

Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 46 North American Limited Edition

Interestingly, we didn’t see a version of the core, chronograph-equipped Navitimer with standard 12-hour dial until October —  namely the Navitimer B01 Chronograph 46 North American Limited Edition, with a 46mm steel case, rose-gold bezel, and dark blue dial with contrasting black subdials. Limited to U.S. and Canadian retailers, the watch was limited to 300 pieces, equipped with the automatic Caliber B01, and featured the familiar circular slide-rule bezel. It was one of several North American limited editions to hit the shelves this year, as you'll discover in the Superocean section below. 

Superocean:

Breitling Superocean Rainbow

Breitling’s signature dive watch, the Superocean, saw only a few new iterations in 2024, starting in April with the Superocean Automatic 36 North America Edition, which featured a striking mostly white color scheme, with a hint of rose gold in the bezel. In June, Breitling followed up with an expansion of the line’s color palette for summer, namely two Rainbow-dial editions of the Superocean, in 42mm and 36mm sizes, plus another 44mm model with a turquoise dial. With their array of differently hued Super-LumiNovas coating the hands and indexes — yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, red, and orange — the Rainbow editions build upon the success of the Heritage ‘57 Rainbow models from 2020, whose proceeds went to COVID-related charities in that pandemic-centered year. They also bring a cheerful face to the revived, retro-look Superocean, which takes many of its cues from the fondly remembered “Slow Motion” divers of the 1960s and ‘70s.

Breitling Superocean Automatic 46 Super Diver

Alongside these stylish summer timers came a Superocean for serious divers, the Automatic 46 Super Diver, with a massive titanium case tested to an extreme water resistance of 1,000 meters and a bidirectional rotating bezel with a patented safety lock, instead of the standard unidirectional bezel, to prevent unintentional adjustments underwater. The dials are in black or dark green with a camo pattern, colors matched by the ceramic insert on the bezel. The Breitling Caliber 10 inside the case is protected inside a soft-iron inner cage, ensuring that the watch’s resistance to magnetism is just as robust as its resistance to water pressure.

Avenger:

Breitling Avenger U.S. Naval Aviation Editions

Breitling’s most military-chic aviation family, the Avenger, welcomed a handful of new members this year. In June, the Swiss watchmaker released a trio of new Avenger models paying homage to U.S. naval aviation, and specifically three elite institutions: the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the nerve center of naval training; and the VX-30 Bloodhounds and VX-31 Dust Devils, California-based squadrons at the highest level of test piloting. The watches’ black ceramic cases, housing the automatic, COSC-certified B01 movements, feature dedicated engravings on their exhibition casebacks and dials with the distinctive colors of each team: the Dust Devils’ red and black, the Bloodhounds’ gray and yellow, and the USNA’s blue and yellow. All the watches are mounted on rugged leather straps with contrast topstitching for an unmistakably military character. In October, Breitling followed up with a new series of Avenger “Night Mission” models, in three different-sized black ceramic cases and an array of intriguing dial treatments, including full-carbon, camo patterns, and sky blue. Blake Buettner takes a closer look at the 2024 Night Mission collection here.

Professional:

Breitling Aerospace B70 Oribiter

Breitling’s “Professional” series, the most tool-oriented models equipped with the brand’s thermocompensated “SuperQuartz” movements and often featuring task-specific analog and digital displays, rarely receive lots of plaudits from collectors and enthusiasts but are often among the most interesting pieces from a technical standpoint. This year, the major release was the Aerospace B70 Orbiter, a watch that commemorates the 25th anniversary of a Breitling-sponsored aviation milestone: the first circumnavigation of the globe in a balloon, by Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones aboard the Breitling Orbiter 3, in 1999. The titanium-cased watch with a bright orange dial that evokes the historic balloon’s capsule (and also brings to mind the most famous Professional watch, the Breitling Emergency), is equipped with the ana-digi dial and array of functions that are emblematic of the Aerospace line: chronograph with split-seconds and flyback, perpetual calendar, countdown timers, alarms, lap timers and second time zones — all delivered at 10 times the accuracy of a standard quartz watch thanks to Breitling’s SuperQuartz Caliber B70. As an added bonus — and perhaps as a lure to those collectors mentioned above — the Aerospace B70 Orbiter includes a tiny piece of the actual record-setting Orbiter balloon, embedded behind its transparent caseback. 

Caliber B19:

Breitling's 140th Anniversary Perpetual Calendar Chronograph editions, l-r: Premier Datora, Navitimer, and Super Chronomat

Possibly Breitling’s most significant accomplishment in its 140th anniversary year — and one that has, perplexingly, been somewhat underreported — is its first-ever in-house perpetual calendar movement, Caliber B19. Based on the granddaddy of them all, 2009’s Caliber B01, the new self-winding movement naturally includes the integrated chronograph that has long been a fixture of its ancestor, and also adds a full calendar with a moon-phase, which automatically corrects for leap years and thus can run for nearly 100 years without a calendar adjustment. Despite all these features, Caliber B19 also offers a power reserve even sturdier than its predecessors: a full 96 hours as opposed to the already impressive 70 hours that is standard for the B01 and most of its offspring. 

Caliber B19 features a solid gold rotor with an engraving of Breitling's historic factory building on rue de Montbrillant

This elite, multitasking engine finds a home in not one but three new Breitling watches, one from each of three emblematic product families (because, according to Kern, "We couldn't single one out... it had to be all three"), introduced during Geneva Watch Days back in August. In ascending order of case size, they are the Premier Datora 42 140th Anniversary; the Navitimer B19 Chronograph 43 Perpetual Calendar 140th Anniversary; and the Super Chronomat B19 44 Perpetual Calendar 140th Anniversary. Displayed behind the sapphire exhibition caseback of each model, Caliber B19 impresses not only with its technical mastery but with its decorative details, particularly the engraving of Breitling’s historical watchmaking factory at 3 rue de Montbrillant in la Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland on the solid gold rotor. Each watch is limited to 140 pieces and comes in a suede-lined wooden box that can display up to three timepieces — an enticement, perhaps, for those with the financial means to collect all three. The significance of Breitling joining the relatively thin ranks of watch brands that make their own perpetual calendar-chronograph movements — Patek Philippe, IWC, and only a handful of others come to mind — should be a development that earns the brand more connoisseur attention in years to come.

As 2024 draws to a close, it is of course always tempting to speculate what Breitling has in store for its fans in 2025. To me, aside from the 140-piece limited edition with the new perpetual calendar Caliber B19 showcased above, Breitling's recently revived "gentlemen's chronograph" model, the Premier, is conspicuous by its dearth of new models this year. Could a big Premier year be in the works? Or might we more likely see another stretch in which several product families get their individual turns in the newsworthy spotlight? One thing's for certain: we won't have long before we start finding out.