Zenith Returns To Their Revival Series With New A3817

Some of our favorite Zenith releases in recent years have been under the banner of their Revival series, where they bring historic designs back to life in near perfect reissues. They do this all while keeping their foot on the gas with the ultra modern Defy collection, which just saw the introduction of a new Extreme family. My life is a far cry from what you’d call ‘extreme’ so these Revival watches suit my tastes just fine. This time, it’s the 1971 A3817 model that gets the call. 

The A3817 was the first to pair the tricolor dial seen on the A386 with the tonneau case of the A384. Clear as mud? Numbers aside, this is a pretty great looking watch built on the sublime platform we reviewed in the A385 right here. That means a steel tonneau case that measures 37mm in diameter and 47mm from tip to tip. Even with the domed sapphire crystal, the total thickness is still under 13mm. I was so enamored with this watch on the wrist that I picked up a panda dial A384 immediately after that review, so please pardon my bias here.

The dial on the A3817 is unique, and pairs a few features we’ve seen on separate models from Zenith in the past. First and foremost, we have the overlapping tricolor sub dials, a look that was made famous by the first El Primero equipped A386, and is likely the visual that comes to mind when you hear the word Zenith. Between the minute hashes we see the ‘shark tooth’ sub-second hashes dividing each second in 10 stylish slices. This execution was also found on the “Cover Girl” A3818 released last year. A tachymeter scale over black sits at the dial’s edge, holding everything in place within the small dial. 

Inside things remain the same as the other Revival watches, with the high frequency El Primero 400 proudly on display through the open caseback. There’s not much to say about this one that hasn’t already been said, but it’s legendary for a reason and feels right at home in this set up.

Zenith is once again offering the Gay Frères ladder bracelet here alongside a light brown leather option. The bracelet looks fantastic, but was one of the sticky points we found when reviewing the A385, for this price we’d like to see a slightly higher build quality. 

On the steel bracelet the A3817 Revival is priced at $8,400 while the leather option will run $7,900. These are available to purchase as of this week directly from Zenith. This watch is not a limited edition, and joins a growing stable of general release Revival watches. Zenith.