My quest to own homages of my favourite luxury watches continues with this one to the Longines Spirit Zulu Time, a GMT complication watch deeply embedded in the brand’s history. In 1908, Longines designed a watch for the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) to convert Turkish time into Western time; in 1911, Longines filed a patent for the first pocket watch displaying two time zones; in 1925, they launched the first series production of a second time zone watch, the Longines Zulu Time.
A timepiece of such historical achievement does deserve a worthy homage and I am glad Pagani Design (PD) offers it as a part of their renewed efforts to improve overall quality in 2024. For the colour scheme, the dial and bezel are spot-on but there are subtle differences with PD adding indices for seconds on the chapter ring, a differently coloured GMT pointer, a spear-head central seconds pointer and no date window. The bracelet design has been reproduced correctly for this model. The five-part solid link unit comprising of brushed and polished surfaces is almost perfectly engineered except for the end-links that are a few millimeters longer than the case lugs.
The watch feels solid and in the flesh, is a very attractive reproduction of important horological history on the wrist - a black dial enclosed in a dark olive green bezel with off-white, gilded indices and pointers - and gives off a very luxurious appearance. The double-domed sapphire crystal has exceptionally good clarity, bringing alive the watch's virtues.
The case has a completely brushed finish with a small high-polished chamfer running along either top edge. The PD signed, screw-down crown has a good grip and has a small taper towards the case making it stop a little away from the case even in fully tightened position.
At the heart of this watch is Seiko's NH34 GMT movement nestled in a stainless steel 316L case. In a GMT watch, the bezel is ideally bi-directional, but PD continues to have it unidirectional with 120 clicks. The bezel aligns perfectly with the markers.
As a part of PD attempting to scale new heights in quality in 2024, I read that the lume brightness and longevity is a couple of notches above earlier models, a gripe in every detailed review I have seen for PD watches earlier. There is a marked improvement in the rotation of the bezel with almost negligible back-lag which was also experienced earlier. The sapphire crystal is undoubtedly crystal clear enabling one see the dial and its contents clearly from various angles without distortion, a step up from their earlier sapphire crystals.
I am delighted with this addition to my collection and hope to see many more PD homages of other leading luxury watches reach our shores through Dream Watch Company.