What makes the Zenith Daytona so special other than it being the hottest model from arguably the hottest manufacture in watchmaking today? Allow us to briefly explain. Introduced at Baselworld 1988, the Zenith Daytona replaced the manual wind Daytona from yesteryear. The previous generation of this model had plastic crystals along with 35-36mm cases with manual wind Valjoux movements. This milestone Daytona introduced in 1988 had a sapphire crystal, more robust case, screw down pushers, and a high beat automatic movement based on the El Primero by Zenith. Rolex made over 200 of its own modifications to this movement to get it up to par with its standards, and so the Zenith Daytona with Caliber 4030 was born. The 12-year run of the Zenith Daytona’s ended when Rolex introduced the caliber 4130 in 2000 alongside the 116520. The minute details of the 16520 Zenith Daytona have made it a cult classic. More importantly with the black dialed version, when the sub dials have slightly faded into a brown, they are dubbed “Patrizzi”. With astronomic rise in price of all Rolex steel models and even more specifically the entire Daytona line, the Zenith Daytona makes the argument for quite the value proposition in today’s market.