When we think about all the icons of horology that were created in the past century, our thoughts are directed towards their final versions. We don’t imagine that some of them, if not most, were works in progress brands played with it until they figured out the perfect recipe. For example, did Rolex had a stroke of genius and made one design of the Submariner and called it a day? Wouldn’t Doxa have experimented with different dial colors and hand proportions before finalizing the perfect SUB300? And isn’t it likely that Omega didn’t get the Speedmaster right on first attempt? We cannot know for sure but what we do know about is that brands go through numerous sketches, prototypes, and revisions before releasing a new collection, as it is a story it is common for them to relate in today’s watch world. And even when they do at least release something, they might not have gotten it quite right but we do appreciate where they are trying to go with it. And good brands will go back to the drawing board once more. 

In many cases, the final products were so good that avid horological entrepreneurs created successful businesses from reviving brands which, looking from the present into the past, created smash hit after smash it after yet another smash it. As you have noticed, there are many defunct watch brands which have been resurrected from the graveyard of watchmaking because someone understood their stuff was good and they simply had to recreate all of their iconic models in order to encounter financial success. (There ought to be more to it than Xero’ing old designs but we must keep the narrative dramatic for good measure.) Benrus is one of the plethora of historic houses of watchmaking that was reborn (more than once,) and today’s version of New-York-born Swiss-established brand is more than horology’s Kinko’s for it experiments with new designs—first by widening the aesthetic ranges of its most iconic models, and second by inventing what the successors of these legends are. That is what the Type 3X Zulu Black is. 

Specifications 

The typical revival story goes as follows: someone knows of or comes across a brand whose heart stopped beating at some point in its existence for one reason or another. (The go-to “why” is the Quartz Revolution Seiko brought upon the industry at the end of the 1960s.) For years all of what remains of the brand are vintage models changing hands numerous times on the secondary market, mythical stories about the who and what and when that take roots on the world’s forums and independent online publications, and a few people’s wishes that it would still exist. In most cases (as I have it on good authority from a Swiss historian,) there are no archives, no unfinished prototypes, no spare parts to be found anywhere in the world, for when brands draw out their last breath, someone puts all of that remains into a giant trashcan and moves on with their Saturday afternoon. So when someone else revives the brand they start with vintage models and new manufacturing partners and then weave together a new story to justify its new existence. 

In other words, one of the best outcomes of this very popular process is for us enthusiasts and collectors to get modern-built vintage-looking timepieces we hadn’t seen in a long time. After the first successful revival of an icon, the new brand owner(s) look for a second one to recreate hoping for another success, and if they do get it, search for a third and a fourth and so on and so forth. That is the path most revived houses of watchmaking take and this is the one Benrus embarked on as well. And it was necessary to do so in order to get something good going (read: financial stability and the community’s buy-in) in order to do something no one else has ever dared trying yet (as far as I know): creating an actual new collection which is something Benrus hasn’t done in the past five decades. And this is where things get interesting: for the Type 3X Zulu Black, Benrus didn’t take the easy route of simply coming up with a new visual variation of the iconic Type I and Type II’s, but instead conceptualized something entirely new. 

A new member of the family of military-issued dive watches that would be designed and engineered for today’s Special Forces and not those from the 1970s, irrespective of how outstanding the first two versions were and whether or not they had to be revived. (They had to, obviously.) One can imagine that the first generations were designed and engineered by Benrus working side-by-side with the American Military in order to create something their operators actually needed and not something the brand leadership wanted them to have, and that is for sure the process the brand embarked on to create the Type 3X, consulting with U.S. Special Forces veterans. To keep a long story short, these veterans gave Benrus a list of specifications, design features, and wearability requirements to start from, and the brand’s designers and engineers transformed that list into a modern military timekeeping device we are dissecting today with the greatest of enthusiasm. As we’re about to see, the Type 3X doesn’t step onto an old path but creates a new one.

For one, Benrus was deadset on giving Special Operators a superlative wearing experience which required the introduction of new case materials the brand never played with before. For the case is made of two titanium plates sandwiching a carbon-fiber body so that the chassis is light (71g on the tan velcro strap) and durable. A massive 8.4 screw-down crown and screwed-in case-back give the Type 3X Zulu an appropriate 200 meters of water resistance, while a single-domed sapphire crystal complemented by dual-sided anti-reflective coating provides a clear view of the crystal regardless of the sun’s theatrics. The bezel is made of a titanium assembly, aluminum inlay, and 120 clicks of the smoothest most precise action as if it was mounted on hundreds of ball-bearings. (It is truly something.) The caliber inside is an ETA 2893 (4Hz/42 hours of power reserve) lodged inside a soft-iron cage which gives it an antimagnetic resistance of 250 gauss. And lastly: Old Radium SuperLuminova on the hands, hour markers, and all bezel markings. 

Design 

Box one: check. Benrus did deliver something brand new for the brand from a technical perspective by going beyond the good materials and components it usually equips its professional and military tool watches with. Titanium is nothing new in the watch industry of course but it is a first for Benrus, and it went as far as combining this sought-after tactical material with carbon-fiber which is itself lightweight and durable. (And we can imagine the opposite of cheap to get manufactured to the brand’s specifications.) But endowing the Type 3X Zulu with excellent specifications wasn’t enough in order to create an icon which is why the brand must have gone to the drawing board numerous times—and on a crap load of boards I would imagine—in order to create a new design. Something that would be equally fresh and novel as the materials it sourced to create a new dive watch for U.S. Special Forces operators who require for it to be comfortable, durable, legible, and unique to their professions. That is box 2 we’re now getting into. 

And there are two ways by which to analyze the visual nature and efficiency of the Type 3X Zulu: (1) what it inherited from the Type I and II; (2) what it bespoke to it. From the Type 1 Benrus repurposed the classic pencil-style hands + diver’s dial layout (the inverted triangle, circular, and baton markers) which provides a superlative reading experience and makes for a clean and ultra-classic dial. From the Type II Benrus repurposed the Arabic numerals of the inner 24-hour military scale which it placed on the steep rehaut so that the dial is cleaner but this functionality was preserved. And everything else you see is pretty much new for the Type 3X: a matte waffle-decorated dial, applied and polished hour markers, a framed (painted) date aperture at the six (white numerals on a black disc,) hour/minute hands that are half-stealthily skeletonized and painted with white surrounds, a white seconds hand composed of a chevron element and lumed tip, and a red-stemmed GMT hand complemented by a white triangular lumed apparatus. 

That is a superb design gymnastic Benrus embarked on to match the Type 3X’s holistic suite of specifications with the end-goal of indeed creating its first new collection in the past five decades. But by now you must have spotted the metaphorical elephant in the horological room: a visual incoherence between the GMT hand the 24-hour military scale printed on the rehaut. At first, I thought Benrus wanted us to read the military time with a GMT hand which obviously doesn’t make sense since the fourth hand does one revolution around the dial in 24 hours while the scale printed on the rehaut only accounts for half of those hours. In fact, the two are not related to each other and must be read independently. In other words, the GMT hand is missing a GMT scale and we have to rely on our understanding of those things to remember that, for example, the three o’clock marker of the local time marks 6 on the invisible GMT scale and the 8 o’clock marker 16. This is not ideal but not the first time brands ask us to do some mental work. 

This is to say that Benrus missed an obvious mark on this one however this irregularity does not have to cast a negative shadow on the Type 3X’s excellent specifications and bespoke design. And we are not done discussing the latter since we haven’t talked about the case. As we know, it is made of the combination of titanium and carbon-fiber which are lightweight and durable materials that also come with two distinct visual characters: the titanium bits are dark grey and fully brushed while the carbon-fiber bits are black and display horizontal manufacturing lines, creating a natural visual contrast reinforced by the unique profile of the case—a sort of tonneau shape for the titanium plate with the beginning of crown-guards as well as wide chamfers above the lugs, and carved-in sections and shallow crown-guards for the carbon-fiber mid-case. They are joined by a massive dual-finished crown whose knurling clears the crown-guards and a tri-colored fully-graduated bezel where the first 15 minutes are highlighted in a tan color. 

Oh, I forgot to mention the case’s dimensions: 42mm in diameter, 45.3mm lug-to-lug, 12.50mm thick and comes with a 20mm lug width. Oopsy. 

The Heart of the Matter

We need to give credit where credit is due: Benrus did something most revived brands never did and will probably never dare doing—it created an actual new collection, and as we know, the first one in the past 50 years which was a bold move to make. Because, for many years in the 21st century, Benrus was merely the shadow of its old original self and whoever ran the brand back then simply resurrected old models in order to put some of your hard-earn dollars into their wallet. But the most recent version of the brand, the one that created all models we reviewed here on Mainspring—the DTU-2A/P, Type 2 MIL-SPEC,  #3061 BU, #3061 GT, and Sky Chief Stratus Grey—is not only intent on creating quality and faithful versions of its own icons (which is the only thing most brands do,) but to also imagine new versions of them (the #3061 GT for example,) and finally, to fashion actual new collections. This is what led to the creation of the Type 3X Zulu, the third chapter in Benrus’ Special Forces dive watches catalog, and though it isn’t perfect yet it is bound to be in the near future and we could argue is darn impressive as it stands. Because indeed, icons are not created on first attempt. 

Conclusion 

I won’t hide the fact that I’m quite fond of Benrus and of its military timekeeping devices which tickle my horological heart with playful intensity. And I care about it so much that I do not mind pointing out shortcomings in its catalog when I see them, akin to a real friend giving actual advice because he cares. One concern I’ve had is the price at which Benrus sells its models, notably the Type II MIL-SPEC and Sky Chief (regardless of how outstanding I find them to be,) and upon reading up about the Type 3X Zulu’s spec sheet, I thought I would have to make the same comment. But I won’t as this model retails for CHF 2,450/$2,894 USD (excluding taxes) which seems fair to me given all of the tech that went into making it and the novel nature of its design—all of which were required to lay the foundations of Benrus’ next iconic model. I have the feeling that more will be said about the Type 3X Zulu in the future so keep an eye out for a follow-up article. 

By the way, this model also comes in a green version! 

Thanks for reading.