Everything that can be said about the Omega Speedmaster had already been said, at least that was the case until Basel World 2011.
At its core, the basic Speedmaster - the Speedmaster Professional - has remained largely unchanged; a 3-register chronograph with a fixed tachymetre bezel built atop a Lemania-based manually wound movement. Its unmistakable proportions and details have come to define what most folks think of as a classic chronograph The automatic Speedmaster, though, has always taken a backseat to the professional employing less than classic designs and movements, often based on very simple ETA or Valjoux ebauches.
All that changed last March when Omega introduced an entirely new Speedmaster, a Speedmaster fitted with an in-house automatic, co-axial column wheel chronograph. This isn't your Speedmaster Professional, and it doesn't pretend to be, it's something entirely different. This is the Speedmaster of an entirely new generation, the Speedmaster that will take Omega into the next century. It's bigger, bolder, we think bettter, and certainly more expensive (roughly double the price of the ETA-based automatic Speedmasters.)
I recently spent a week with the new Omega Speedmaster Co-Axial Chronograph to find out how it stacks up to the original, and a host of other high-end alternatives - read on for a detailed review of a watch that has the potential to become a new staple in sport watches.