News · Nivada Grenchen

Nivada brings back the Autochron, one 7750 mechanical and four meca-quartz from US$822

Nivada Grenchen has revived the Autochron with five watches, one Valjoux 7750 at US$3,558 and four meca-quartz at US$822.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 2 min read · 11 August 2026

Nivada Grenchen Autochron Orange Automatic, matte black dial running into an orange gradient with three beige counters, on a steel bracelet — Nivada Grenchen

Case thickness is where brands do their quietest lying. Measure to the top of the bezel, leave the crystal out of it, print whichever number sounds slimmest. I've got into the habit of adding a couple of millimetres in my head to anything on a spec sheet, and I'm usually not adding enough.

Nivada Grenchen printed both numbers. It put five new Autochrons up for sale on 10 August, reviving one of its rarest late-1970s experiments, and the mechanical one is listed at 12.7mm without the crystal and 15.2mm with it. The case is 38mm across. That's a tall stack on a small diameter, and nobody made them say so.

Solid steel caseback of the Nivada Grenchen Autochron Automatic with the Nivada shield — Nivada Grenchen

The 7750 is why it's that tall

The Autochron Orange Automatic runs the ETA Valjoux 7750 with date, 28,800 vibrations an hour, 48 hours of reserve. The case is vertically brushed 316L steel, 46.5mm lug to lug, water resistant to 20 ATM, under a double-domed sapphire.

The 7750 was built for big chronographs and it hasn't shrunk since. Fold it into vintage proportions and the height has to go somewhere. You're trading footprint for height, and whether that's a good deal comes down to whether you'd rather a watch look small from above or sit flat on the wrist. This one looks small from above.

Nivada Grenchen Autochron Mecaquartz Panda, matte white dial with three black counters and a red central chronograph hand — Nivada Grenchen

Orange gradient, beige counters, 120 clicks

The bezel is unidirectional aluminium with 120 clicks a revolution, lifted off the original Autochron and sharpened up. It gives you a second elapsed-time reference sitting right there on the case, readable without ever touching a pusher, which on a chronograph is quietly more useful than it sounds.

The dial runs matte black into an orange gradient with warm beige counters, and the applied indexes are filled with Super-LumiNova 1345C. You get hours, minutes, small seconds, a 60-second chronograph, 30-minute and 12-hour counters, and a date window.

US$822 buys the Panda

The Automatic Orange is US$3,558 on a strap and US$3,868 on the bracelet, on pre-order. The four meca-quartz versions are US$822 on a strap and US$1,132 on the bracelet, running the TMI VK67 meca-quartz with date.

They come as Panda, Reverse Panda, Blue and Orange. The Panda is a matte white dial with three black counters and red racing accents, and at US$822 it's the one I'd put my own money on. A VK67 gives you a sweeping chronograph seconds hand and a proper mechanical snap on the pusher. That's most of what I want out of a chronograph anyway, for under a quarter of the money.

One more thing, and it's Nivada's own wording. The product page says the 7750 beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour "according to the supplied product specification". A brand hedging in public on a movement figure it didn't measure itself is unusual, and I'd take it over a confident number nobody checked.

Nivada hasn't put an Australian price on any of the five yet, Panda included.