Breitling Reinvents the Chronomat: 22 New References, a Slimmer B01 42, and the All-New B31 Automatic 40

Description

Breitling has comprehensively redesigned the Chronomat, unveiling on 19 May 2026 a sweeping 22 new references across three platforms: the flagship Chronomat B01 42 automatic chronograph, the brand-new Chronomat B31 Automatic 40 — the first time-and-date Chronomat ever offered in a 40 mm case — and a refined Chronomat Automatic 36. It is the second time the line has been overhauled since its modern revival in 2020, and the cumulative effect is a Chronomat that finally reads as a fully resolved integrated-sports-watch architecture rather than a chronograph platform with a bracelet bolted on.

The headline numbers tell the story before the press text does. The B01 42's case thickness has been cut from 15.1 mm to 13.77 mm — a 1.33 mm reduction without losing the column-wheel-and-vertical-clutch in-house Manufacture Caliber 01. The B31 Automatic 40 introduces Breitling's in-house time-only manufacture caliber (the Caliber B31, launched in 2025 with a 78-hour power reserve) into a 40 mm × 10.99 mm case that drops the brand straight into Royal Oak and Nautilus territory at roughly half their price. And the 36 mm Auto comes in at 9.68 mm thick. The lugs across all three platforms now sit beneath the case in a fully integrated case-and-bracelet construction — the rider-tab bezel and the seven-row Rouleaux bracelet, the two design signatures Breitling has refused to give up since 1984, are preserved untouched.

Pricing runs from USD 5,950 for the steel Automatic 36 to USD 49,900 for the full red-gold B01 42, with the central B31 Automatic 40 in steel landing in the USD 8,000–9,000 range depending on configuration. The collection is available now at Breitling boutiques and authorised retailers worldwide.

Design

The 2026 Chronomat keeps every element a Chronomat collector would recognise — the onion crown, the rider tabs at 15/30/45/60 on the unidirectional bezel, the seven-row Rouleaux bracelet — but the proportions are completely reworked. Cases are brushed across the mid-case and tops, polished on the bevels, and now flow into the bracelet via concealed lugs rather than a visible mid-link transition. The signature wing logo sits at 12 o'clock on a refreshed dial with reshaped applied indices and recoloured printed elements. Dial colours run silver, white, blue, green, black, and — exclusively on the platinum-bezel B31 — ice-blue. The B01 42's chronograph layout retains the 30-minute counter at 3, the 12-hour counter at 6, the running seconds at 9, and the date at 4:30. Crystals are sapphire with multi-layer anti-reflective coating front and back, with exhibition case-backs showing the Manufacture Caliber 01 and B31 rotors. The new Rouleaux bracelet integrates an on-the-fly micro-adjustment in the folding clasp — a feature the previous generation lacked.

The visual hero of the release is the B31 Automatic 40 in stainless steel with a polished-platinum bezel and ice-blue dial. The two-material construction (a configuration unique to this reference) and the cold colour palette read as a deliberate counter to the warmer, polished-steel-and-gold registers Breitling has leaned on for the B01.

Specifications

Collection: Chronomat (2026 generation)
Platforms: Chronomat B01 42 (chronograph), Chronomat B31 Automatic 40 (time + date), Chronomat Automatic 36 (time + date)
Total new references: 22
B01 42 case: 42 mm diameter, 13.77 mm thickness, stainless steel / two-tone steel-and-red-gold / full red gold
B31 Automatic 40 case: 40 mm diameter, 10.99 mm thickness, 43.7 mm lug-to-lug, stainless steel / stainless steel with polished-platinum bezel
Automatic 36 case: 36 mm diameter, 9.68 mm thickness, stainless steel / two-tone
Bezel: signature rider-tab unidirectional rotating bezel on all three platforms
Crystal: sapphire with multi-layer internal anti-reflective coating
Caseback: sapphire exhibition
Water resistance: 200 m (B01 42 and B31 Auto 40), 100 m (Auto 36)
Movement (B01 42): Breitling Manufacture Caliber 01 — automatic chronograph, column wheel, vertical clutch, in-house, COSC-certified
Movement (B31 Auto 40): Breitling Manufacture Caliber B31 — automatic time + date, in-house, introduced 2025, COSC-certified
Movement (Auto 36): Breitling Caliber 10 — Sellita SW200-1 base, COSC-certified
Frequency: 28,800 vph / 4 Hz across all three calibers
Power reserve: ~70 h (Caliber 01), ~78 h (Caliber B31), ~42 h (Caliber 10)
Winding: automatic, hacking, hand-winding
Bracelet: Breitling Rouleaux seven-row, fully integrated, on-the-fly micro-adjustment in clasp; rubber Rouleaux-inspired straps on selected references
Warranty: 5 years
Price: USD 5,950 (steel Automatic 36) → USD 49,900 (full red-gold B01 42); B31 Automatic 40 in steel ~USD 8,000–9,000 configuration-dependent
Availability: now, Breitling boutiques and authorised retailers worldwide

What's Exciting

The headline is not the B01 42's reduced thickness — although that is genuinely useful — it is the Chronomat B31 Automatic 40. Breitling has never had a credible time-only manufacture-caliber 40 mm integrated-bracelet sports watch in its catalogue. The 2025 Caliber B31, which introduced a 78-hour power reserve in a time-and-date layout, was waiting for the right case to live in; the 2026 Chronomat redesign is that case. At roughly USD 8,000–9,000 on bracelet, the B31 Automatic 40 is competing directly with the steel Royal Oak Selfwinding 15510 (CHF 26,000), the Nautilus 5811 (CHF 35,000), the VC Overseas 4520V (CHF 25,000), and the GP Laureato 81005 (CHF 14,000) — and is the most aggressively priced authentic-manufacture entry in the segment. Whether it sells is a separate question from whether it is well executed, and the engineering here is the most coherent integrated-sports-watch work Breitling has done.

The B01 42's 13.77 mm thickness is also a real number. The 2020 redesign already pulled the Chronomat below 16 mm; cutting another 1.33 mm — on a column-wheel chronograph with a vertical clutch and a 200 m case — without going to a peripheral rotor or a micro-rotor architecture is uncommon engineering. The fully integrated case-and-bracelet construction borrows directly from the GP Laureato playbook and the Vacheron 222 era — a clear signal that Breitling wants the Chronomat playing on integrated-sports-watch turf, not chronograph-only turf. The ice-blue platinum-bezel B31 is the design hero. The full red-gold B01 42 at USD 49,900 is, given the manufacture caliber and the case construction, no longer the worst value in its segment.

History

The Chronomat name has been on Breitling case-backs since 1942, when the original Chronomat (chrono + mathematics) used a slide-rule bezel for in-flight calculation — a direct ancestor of the better-known Navitimer that followed in 1952. The modern Chronomat as the market knows it dates from 1984, when Ernest Schneider, who had bought the dormant Breitling brand in 1979, relaunched the Chronomat as a partnership with the Italian Air Force's Frecce Tricolori aerobatic team. That partnership produced the now-iconic rider-tab bezel — rotatable tabs at 15, 30, 45, and 60 used to set reference points during flight maneuvers — and the seven-row Rouleaux bracelet. Both elements survive untouched on the 2026 piece.

Through the 1990s the Chronomat became Breitling's commercial backbone, evolving through the B13 (ETA-7750-based, late 1980s), the B13 Evolution (~2004, 43.7 mm) and the B01 launch in 2009 when Breitling's first wholly in-house chronograph caliber moved into the Chronomat case. The line was simplified out of the catalogue between 2018 and 2020 under CEO Georges Kern's broader brand reset, then revived in 2020 with a slimmer 42 mm case, the Rouleaux bracelet, and the original rider-tab bezel. The 2026 redesign is the second iteration of that revival — keeping the design DNA intact while modernising proportions and integrating bracelet construction. Breitling has chosen to overhaul the Chronomat just six years after the 2020 reset rather than wait the traditional ten-year cycle, a signal of just how central the line has become to the brand's identity in the post-Navitimer era.