Top Time

Breitling’s Top Time began in 1964 as a chronograph aimed at a younger audience, with graphic dials rather than the Navitimer’s slide-rule complexity. That preference for bold, readable design links the hand-wound originals to today’s automatic chronographs—and to newer branches that dispense with the stopwatch altogether.

Vintage Top Times span different case shapes, sizes, and two- or three-register layouts; contrasting subdials and sharply divided dial colors are recurring signatures, not universal features. The modern revival brought back the “bow-tie” dial, whose dark central shapes earned the nickname “Zorro.” Later releases broadened the vocabulary: Top Time Classic Cars draws on motoring, while Top Time Deus and Top Time Triumph take their cues from motorcycle culture.

The movement is another useful dividing line. Earlier modern chronographs used supplied automatic calibers, while the Top Time B01 Chronograph uses Breitling’s manufacture B01, with a column wheel and vertical clutch. The Top Time B31 Automatic 38 is a smaller, three-hand interpretation, not a chronograph; the Top Time B21 Tourbillon pairs chronograph timing with a tourbillon.