Breitling Premier B01
- The Arab Gatsby
- Dec 3, 2025
- 3 min read
Looking at my watch collection there has always been a watch that’s been missing from my collection, a chronograph. A proper chronograph. Searching around and seeing what the market had available and what was in my budget, there were a couple of viable options to choose from. The Tag Heuer Carrera Chronograph, which comes in a couple of beautiful dial colors, including this dark purple that is breathtaking. Then there is the Tudor Black Bay Chrono, which has become a recent icon, sticking true to Tudor’s tool watch aesthetics. Then out of the blue my friend put up two of his watches up for sale and I immediately fell in love with them to the point that I didn’t know which one to get. The Bretling Premier B01.
Let’s talk about these two watches for a moment. The Premier line was introduced to Breitling’s line in the 1940’s. It took what Breitling was known for their Chronographs and their Aviator watches and in a way brought them back to the civilized world, after the second World War. The Breitling Premier B01 Chronograph 42mm, yes a mouthful but it truly is a beautiful watch. My friend Salem, as per usual, put two of his B01’s up for sale.
The B01 Norton Edition, which is a collaboration between Breitling and Norton Motorcycles. The Breitling Premier B01 Chronograph 42 reference number AB0118A21BA11 which was released in 2019, comes in a reverse panda color scheme, black dial with white sub dials, and tachymetre. The Norton Edition has Arabic numeral indices, with hour, minute and seconds hand in gold, which pushes towards a gilt color scheme in a way. The other B01, reference number AB0118221G1P1 is the Panda color way, which was released a year earlier than the Norton in 2018. With a white dial and black sub dials and black tachymetre. Unlike the Norton Edition, the watch doesn’t have numeral indices but applied stick indices and hands in polished steel.
Now let’s talk about what these two watches have in common. On the cosmetic side, bot watches have a 42mm polished steel case, with polished chronograph pushers. You can choose either of these watches to be on a leather strap or on a polished steel seven link bracelet, which is tedious to resize due to the links not being connected to each other. Finally both watches have their seconds had pointed in red to make visibility of what you’re tracking more accurate.
On the technical side of their similarities both of these watches are powered by the Breitling Manufacture Calibre 01 Automatic movement, which is the same movement that the Tudor Black Bay Chrono is based on. The movement is COSC Certified beating and a smooth 28800 vph, giving the watch a power reserve of 70 hours. The movement’s complications include, small seconds, date, and a chronograph function.
Torn between which of these two beauties to choose from, Salem left both with me for a couple of days so I can wear both and choose which one I would like to buy. To be completely honest it was a tough choice. The Norton had a charismatic dial, with its semi-gilt scheme. While the Panda was more refined and seemed like a more daily watch. In the end I put one on each wrist and asked my wife, because I couldn’t make up my mind, and the moment she looked at the Panda, she said that’s the one and I should buy it. Keep in mind my wife never says out right “buy this watch” its usually “if you can make it work” or “yeah that’s nice” but NEVER “buy it”. So, I took her advice and purchased the watch, which has become one of my favorite pieces in my collection and one that also sees a lot of time on wrist, even when I am travelling.
I think I made the right choice when it comes to purchasing a chronograph. Don’t get me wrong the other options that I had are beautiful watches, and I still would like to have the Tudor Black Bay Chrono, but maybe in the boutique exclusive blue colorway.
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