180 YEARS OF
180 YEARS OF
180 YEARS OF
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HISTORY | <strong>180</strong> Years of Longines<br />
TECHNICAL<br />
INNOVATIONS,<br />
NEW STRUCTURES AND<br />
ongines has been involved in timing<br />
sporting events since the very beginning<br />
of the 20th L<br />
century. In 1954, the<br />
company designed and built a<br />
chronometer with a quartz movement for timing sporting<br />
events. (It happened to be as big as a suitcase.) e<br />
precision of this watch was astonishing, capable of measuring<br />
the time to 1/100 of a second. Making quartz technology<br />
small enough for personal use seemed a promising<br />
goal and Longines worked for more than 10 years on<br />
miniaturizing the quartz watch. In 1966, the company<br />
The first portable<br />
quartz clock from<br />
1954 was designed for<br />
sports timekeeping.<br />
70 | WatchTime LONGINES SPECIAL<br />
presented a huge sensation: a pocket watch with a<br />
quartz movement that immediately won rst prize from<br />
the Neuchâtel Observatory. Longines introduced another<br />
more “user-friendly” version in 1969: a wristwatch<br />
with a quartz movement. e “Ultra-Quarz” appeared<br />
at the same time as the quartz watches produced<br />
by the Japanese company Seiko. Even though quartz<br />
technology has generally been understood as a Japanese<br />
accomplishment, Longines can show that Switzerland<br />
produced groundbreaking work during the pioneering<br />
period of the quartz watch. However, it took several<br />
years until the Ultra-Quarz was ready for mass production<br />
and by that time Seiko already had its own quartz<br />
watches on the market.<br />
When Longines presented the rst quartz wristwatch<br />
with a liquid crystal display in 1972, the company<br />
counted it as another milestone in quartz technology development.<br />
Longines also continued to develop mechanical<br />
watch movements with continued success, especially<br />
with its automatic watches.<br />
But not all was well in the Swiss watch industry. Companies<br />
in the watch sector began to merge as a way to better<br />
meet the demands of the global market. Longines became<br />
a corporation in 1965, and in 1971, the company<br />
became a part of ASUAG, which also owned Ébauches<br />
SA, which later became ETA.<br />
Although Longines continued to achieve satisfactory<br />
sales numbers and entered important Asian markets, the<br />
Swiss watch industry began to experience diculties.<br />
e two largest groups in the industry, ASUAG and<br />
SSIH, were experiencing massive nancial pressures.<br />
e groups depended on Swiss banks who turned to the<br />
corporate consultant Nicolas G. Hayek (1928–2010). In<br />
1982, Hayek submitted a report in which he recommended<br />
a merger of the two groups, and in 1983, his rec-<br />
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