Spirit watches

The Longines Spirit is the brand's modern pilot's watch, launched in 2020 as a new design rather than a re-edition of an archive piece. It is dedicated to the aviators and explorers who once wore Longines, among them Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Paul-Emile Victor, Elinor Smith and Howard Hughes. The cues are classic pilot's watch: applied luminous Arabic numerals, pilot-style baton hands, an oversized screw-down crown and a domed sapphire crystal over a steel case rated to 100 m. The five stars on the dial are the top of the scale Longines used to signal the quality and reliability of its movements.

The time-and-date Spirit and the chronograph launched with automatic, COSC-certified Longines calibres with silicon balance springs. The time-and-date models use the L888.4, developed from an ETA base; the chronograph uses the L688.4, a column-wheel chronograph at 28,800 vibrations per hour with a three-register dial.

The time-and-date Spirit started out at 40 mm (L3.810) and 42 mm (L3.811), with the chronograph (L3.820) at 42 mm only. References ending in .9 are the Prestige Edition: the same 40 or 42 mm watch delivered with a steel bracelet, a leather strap and a brown leather NATO. The 37 mm Spirit (L3.410) came in 2022, 11.7 mm thick, with the date moved from 3 to 6 o'clock and a champagne dial added to black and blue. The titanium Spirit (L3.810.1 and L3.811.1) pairs an anthracite-grey dial with a titanium bracelet or a NATO, and the Pioneer Edition chronograph also comes in titanium. The Spirit Zulu Time (L3.812) is the 42 mm GMT. Its name goes back to Longines' first dual-time wristwatch of 1925, which carried the Zulu signal flag; Z is the letter aviators use for universal time. It adds a bidirectional bezel with a ceramic 24-hour insert.

Speake-Marin also used the Spirit name, for a line that began in 2011 with the Spirit Pioneer in the brand's Piccadilly case, the drum-shaped case with screwed lugs named after Peter Speake-Marin's years at Somlo in London's Piccadilly.