Breitling watches with Tudor movements
A funny thing happened while I was in the midst of the drawn out process of reviewing Breitling’s “original” (modern) Superocean Heritage watch – Breitling decided to release a brand new model with the Breitling Superocean Heritage II that debuted at Baselworld 2017. The Breitling Superocean Heritage II is actually a few different models comprised of various styles of the 42mm-wide three-hand model, the 46mm-wide three-hand model, and the 46mm-wide chronograph. This article is meant to compare and contrast the first generation Breitling Superocean Heritage I with the replacement “next generation” Superocean Heritage II. An interesting change about the watch – which I will discuss more below – is that for the three-hand models Breitling is now using Tudor movements – imagine that.
A lots changes
Changes to the Breitling Superocean Heritage II replica watches over the I are subtle but important. What Breitling really did is address the “aging” of the Superocean Heritage, which was about materials and parts over design. The Superocean Heritage was and continues to be a solid money-maker for Breitling, being one of its most popular and attractive models. The Superocean name is derived from a historic diving watch of the same name released about 70 years ago by Breitling, whose look was “revived” in the Superocean Heritage. As a “vintage-inspired” diving watch, the Superocean Heritage lived alongside more “modern” (in design) diving watches from Breitling such as the (non “Heritage”) Superocean. Since we have photos of both the Generation I and Generation II in this review, the fastest way to identify them is by looking at the hour and minute hand. If the hour hand is bisected and the minute hand sports a more dramatic tapering, it’s the Generation II.
While it is increasingly common for luxury fake watches brands to follow “The Rolex Way” of updating existing models over and over again as time goes on, the practice is more rare than you might be led to believe. Though, in recent years brands have seen value in sticking to “pillar” products and continually refining them over time in order to make them appealing to new customers as well as to encourage existing customers to upgrade. That is really only something you can do with a good core design. Breitling has more or less followed this strategy, but in a very different way, While they certainly have their share of pillar models, there are instances when new generation versions of existing names aren’t necessarily improved previous versions. Sometimes they are merely “different,” without a clear reason why.
New version
The 2017 Superocean Heritage II is much more clear in its purpose – and that is not to re-imagine the look of the Superocean Heritage collection, but rather to make it more modern. Some of the design decisions might be controversial, but for the most part, the Superocean Heritage II is everything we loved about the Superocean Heritage I, with some more modern materials and in the case of the three-hand version, a new movement.
