Two rare Citizen 8110A chronos: 67-9313 'Speedmaster' & Walter Wolf Racing

I'd been happily collecting vintage Seikos for some time, but I'd not ventured to vintage Citizen territory till very recently.

One of the most well-regarded vintage Citizen chronographs on the 70s was the 67-9313, dubbed the 'Speedmaster' due to more than a passing resemblance to the iconic Omega moonwatch, including a dot-over-90 bezel! =P

There's lots on online material on the Citizen 'Speedy' - check out a couple of them here and here.

These are not easy to come by at all. You may find a few languishing on Ebay, but these usually have had a truly hard life and are consequently in a poor condition, or worse, they've been put together with mismatched or plain wrong parts.
I finally managed to source mine from the Vintage Citizen Forum - thanks Bogdan!
He had both the white and black dialled variants, but I'd always preferred the white dialled version.

On arrival, the 'Speedy' was as advertised - in an excellent condition and running perfectly fine.

The movement within is the well regarded Citizen 8110A that ticks all the right boxes - column wheel, vertical clutch, 28800bph flyback chronograph.

More details here.



With such an awesomely specced movement within, these vintage Citizen chronos must be the real deal right? Well, not quite...I have several minor quibbles regarding these...their naming nomenclature is confusing as hell, thus making it a bitch to search for them using an online search engine.
Plus, perhaps more importantly in this day and age where size matters, these guys are just a wee bit too small on the wrist, with miserably small crowns - maybe suitable for people with small hands?
A certain newly inaugurated president comes to mind.....=P



So what's better than one vintage iconic Citizen hi-beat, flyback chrono?
Why, two vintage iconic Citizen bi-beat flyback chronos, of course, duh!!! =)

There's generally a lot of interest amongst watch collectors in vintage chronographs with a racing pedigree, eg. the Siffert Autavia, the Bellof Montreal, the Jim Clark Enicar.

This one, from the other side of the world, is perhaps not so well known - the titanium Walter Wolf Citizen 8110A Chronograph.

I had to do some googling to find out about Walter Wolf Racing, but it does seem to have fairly eventful, though short-lived existence.

Their debut year 1977 was most definitely their best year, with their driver Jody Scheckter winning 3 races (Argentina - a win in their debut race!, Monaco and Canada) and achieving 6 other podium finishes to eventually finish 2nd behind Nikki Lauda in the world championship, with the team achieving 4th place in the constructors championship!

More details here.

This particular watch dates to Nov 1983 by serial number (gotta love these vintage Seikos and Citizens - their serial number allows one to date the watch to the month and year of production!), and is 39mm across.

Appearance wise, it's a little busy, what with cardinal directions on the countdown MH bezel, and the dial containing the prominent Walter Wolf logo, day (in Kanji)/date indicator, as well as the 2 subdials, all surrounded by the inner Tachymeter bezel.

But everything's arranged nice and neatly, and to me, overall, it's a pretty package!

Anyways, I think it's a big shame that this little Citizen flies just under the radar, just slightly unknown and unappreciated.

To me it's a gorgeous watch, which should have it's deserved, rightful place amongst its much more well-known Heuer and Enicar brethren!