Benrus Type 3X Zulu: military heritage meets the modern era
It is rare for a brand with such a strong heritage to agree to shake it up. Benrus, born in Manhattan in 1921 and forged in American military history, could have carried on reissuing its classics, something it does very well, by the way, since its relaunch. With the Type 3X, it takes a different path: that of a watch which does not replay the past, but uses it as a starting point to explore new ground. I was lucky enough to receive both versions of this Type 3X Zulu on loan: black dial and green dial on a matching strap. Two characters sharing a single intent.
Military heritage
To understand what the Type 3X Zulu sets out to do, you first need to know where Benrus comes from. The brand was born in Manhattan in 1921 and built its reputation in the field, in the most literal sense: its watches equipped American soldiers, right up to the special forces. In the 1970s, its Type I and Type II, developed to the military specifications of the day, became references: an asymmetric case protecting the crown, absolute legibility, bulletproof robustness. Three qualities, one guiding idea: the tool first and foremost.
Since its relaunch, the brand has reissued its classics faithfully. This heritage, Benrus now draws on with method, stepping into the modern era. It is the same brand, the one that signs the most faithful reissues of its own past, which decides, with this piece, not to dwell solely on nostalgia. It does not deny its military DNA, but projects it into materials and an aesthetic that the 1970s could never have produced. The bet is a bold one, and it deserves a closer look.
A deceptively simple dial
At first glance, the Type 3X Zulu shows its hand. Both versions share a dial that looks plain, yet reveals itself to be more worked than it seems once the light plays across its surface. The dial is covered in a fine engraved cross-hatching, a regular grid that catches the eye depending on the viewing angle and the light without ever hampering legibility, while the peripheral white minute track takes the opposite approach with a perfectly smooth railroad. This interplay between a textured surface and a clean outer ring gives the dial a quiet depth, far from the flatness one might assume from afar.
Each version then asserts its own character. The black-dial version plays the card of functional sobriety, legible and serious, true to the idea one has of a tool watch. The green version takes a deliberate risk: it is the variant that puts the most distance between itself and the Type I and II, the one that lays claim to modernity most openly. Where the black could almost pass for a beefed-up reissue, the green leaves no doubt as to the model's intentions.
One element nods to the past: the Super-LumiNova® in an "Old Radium" tint, present on both versions, which lends the markers that slightly aged warmth, faux-tritium style. It is the one retro concession in an otherwise resolutely clean design, with no false patina or ageing trickery. The markers themselves are applied and generously filled with luminous material, taking varied shapes: mostly round, rectangular at 3 and 9 o'clock, triangular at 12.
On both versions, the brand name is printed in white capitals at 12 o'clock.
At 6 o'clock, two inscriptions spell out the technical credentials of a genuine tool watch: "200M", for a healthy water resistance, and "GMT", which I will come back to.
Also at 6 o'clock, both models feature a date window with a black disc and white numerals: a tone-on-tone effect on the black version, while on the green the contrast between the dial and the darker disc is in no way jarring.
I also noted a very welcome detail, fairly rare but which I had already spotted on the Ollech & Wajs Selectron: a ring of Super-LumiNova® framing the date window.
At the bottom of the dial, below the date window, sits the "Swiss Made" marking, a reminder that the Type 3X Zulu is indeed assembled in Switzerland, in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Finally, both versions of the Type 3X Zulu feature an inner bezel graduated from 13 to 24, translating each dial marker into military time.
Les aiguilles et la fonction GMT
Identical on both versions, the hands carry over the care lavished on the dial. The hour hand takes a fairly broad baton shape, pencil-like, filled with "Old Radium" Super-LumiNova® on an openworked black base; the minute hand uses the same treatment on a longer hand. You will notice that the luminous tint of the hands is slightly less pronounced than that of the markers, a subtle nuance but a visible one in broad daylight.
The seconds hand, thin and white, ends in an openworked arrow set off with a touch of Super-LumiNova®.
That leaves the most interesting hand, the one that gives the watch its name: the GMT hand. With no counterweight, fitted with a red-orange base and an arrow tip ringed in white and filled with luminous material, it stands out immediately from the rest of the display. Its presence marks the "second time zone" vocation of the Type 3X.
A word, first, on the type of GMT. The "flyer" allows the local hour hand to be set in one-hour jumps: it is the traveller's watch, resetting its local time on each landing while the twenty-four-hour hand keeps a fixed reference. The "caller", by contrast, works the other way round: you set the twenty-four-hour hand independently, and local time stays put. The Type 3X Zulu has the "caller" GMT function, as confirmed by its ETA 2893 movement, with a 42-hour power reserve and anti-magnetic protection to 250 gauss.
"Flyer" or "caller", let us remember that the GMT hand completes one full turn of the dial in twenty-four hours, where the hour hand makes two. To read the time it points to, you therefore need, in theory, a twenty-four-hour scale, often on an inner bezel or a rotating bezel. Here, the Type 3X Zulu has no twenty-four-hour scale. What it does have is that inner bezel graduated from 13 to 24, whose logic, as we have said, is that of a "military time" annotation familiar at Benrus: each value is set opposite its corresponding marker, 13 against marker 1, 14 against marker 2, and so on.
Taken for what it is, this graduation is perfectly coherent. The subtlety lies in its coexistence with the GMT hand. Instinctively, the eye is drawn to the value on the inner bezel sitting opposite the hand, and believes it reads the second time zone there. In practice, to read the GMT time correctly, you have to set the inner bezel aside and picture the position of the hand on a twenty-four-hour dial. This calls for a certain adjustment, but a surmountable one. I will be curious to see how this point evolves on any future versions of the Type 3X Zulu.
A case rooted in modernity
At 42 mm in diameter and 12.50 mm thick, the Type 3X Zulu might, on paper, seem imposing. At the wrist, it is anything but. Its very short lugs, in keeping with the near-lugless profile of the brand's military watches, bring the actual footprint well below what the spec sheet suggests: the watch wears with ease and could almost slip under a shirt cuff. The overall balance is well judged, with no tipping point or sense of poorly distributed mass.
The two versions also differ markedly in the treatment of their cases, to the point of reinforcing the gap in character already set by the dials. The green-dial version adopts a titanium with a black surface treatment, its carbon middle case taking up exactly the green tint of the dial: the result has real character.
The black-dial version plays the opposite card, with titanium and carbon left in their natural finish.
The construction of the case is precisely what plays on materials to keep the weight in check. Rather than a single block, the Type 3X Zulu adopts a layered architecture: the central middle case is in carbon fibre composite, ultralight, held between a titanium top section above and a screwed titanium caseback below. This distribution is no accident. The titanium provides structural strength and water resistance where it matters, while the carbon lightens the heart of the case, its bulkiest part. The result at the wrist is exactly what one hopes for from such a build: a real visual presence, but a lightness that surprises the moment you lift the watch.
The screwed titanium caseback guarantees water resistance to 200 metres, a figure that places the Type 3X Zulu, without question, among the watches that can accompany you in your aquatic pursuits, especially with the rubber straps supplied with these Type 3X Zulu.
The bezel is unidirectional with 120 clicks, in titanium, and black or titanium-coloured depending on the version. Its action is precise and its handling pleasant thanks to sharply cut teeth.
This bezel takes an aluminium insert, fully graduated like a diver's watch. That graduation is filled with Super-LumiNova®, the section of the insert covering the first 15 minutes being fully luminescent.
As you will have gathered, Benrus has not skimped on the Super-LumiNova®, much to our delight. The result in the dark is a joy.
The screw-down crown is very much in keeping with the Type 3X Zulu, muscular and effective, with a reminder of the brand's logo.
Finally, the Type 3X Zulu's crystal is sapphire, with anti-reflective treatment on both faces. Its particularity is a flat outer surface and an internal dome. It combines the resistance and even anti-reflective coating of a flat crystal with a slight depth above the dial, without the magnifying effect of a conventional domed crystal. This crystal rounds off a construction that ticks every box expected of a genuine tool watch.
Technical straps
Each Type 3X Zulu comes with two straps, which immediately lets you vary its character. The black-dial version is fitted as standard with a light beige fabric strap, lined with black leather that adds real comfort on the wrist.
The green-dial version comes on a fabric strap matching the dial, again lined with black leather.
On both, the hook-and-loop band itself is black, with only the colour of the fabric telling the two models apart. This fastening firmly anchors the watch in its military register. The Velcro has one asset you quickly come to appreciate day to day: adjustment. You set the size in the blink of an eye, no tools, no hole to line up, and you shift from one tightness to another depending on your mood or how much the wrist swells over the course of the day. On a tool watch, that is exactly what you want.
It does call for one reservation, inherent to the very nature of Velcro: with use, dust and grime end up lodging in the hook-and-loop band, and regular cleaning is needed to keep it holding and looking clean. Nothing deal-breaking, but it is the well-known trade-off of this type of fastening.
Both Type 3X Zulu also come with an additional strap in black rubber. Fitting it is easy, thanks to the quick-change system.
A final word on fitting a third-party strap, as the possibility is more limited than it seems. Going down that route may prove tricky, despite a standard 20 mm lug width. The gap between the spring bar and the middle case appears too tight to pass anything else through, a NATO for instance.
Benrus Type 3X Zulu: a modern tool watch, and an assured one
At the end of this hands-on, the Type 3X Zulu's bet strikes me as a winning one. Benrus set out to project its military heritage into modernity without betraying it, and the result is convincing: this is a genuine tool watch, not an exercise in style. The 200-metre water resistance and the titanium dive bezel give it real credentials underwater, legibility is faultless by day as by night, the carbon-and-titanium build brings remarkable lightness without sacrificing presence, and the GMT function, despite the reservation I have voiced about reading the second time zone, adds a useful string to its bow. The true attributes of a tool watch are all here, coherent, in the service of real use.
Between the two versions, my heart leans towards the green. It is the one that most openly embodies the model's stance: it puts a little more distance still between itself and the Type I and II, not least with its black-and-green case, and fully embraces the modern turn the Type 3X Zulu lays claim to. The black-dial version, more restrained, will appeal to those who want the modernity of the materials in a more understated guise. Two characters for one and the same watch: to each their own.
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