Breitling introduced the Superocean in 1957, the same year Omega launched the Speedmaster, and four years after the Rolex Submariner and Blancpain Fifty Fathoms had opened the modern dive-watch category. The brief was straightforward: a professional dive watch rated to 200 metres, with a high-contrast matte dial, a rotating 60-minute bezel, and exceptional legibility. Two launch references took the Superocean in different directions. The Ref. 1004 was a three-hand diver with concentric minute track and simple paddle hands. The Ref. 807 was a mono-pusher chronograph diver, a combination that was rare at the time and arguably still is.
Across the late 1950s and 1960s, the Superocean quietly went professional. Breitling won supply contracts with Her Majesty's Royal Navy and the Italian Marina Militare, and the Ref. 2005 "Slow Motion" variant (1964) became a cult piece for its low-geared central minute hand that rotated only once per hour and allowed precise dive-time tracking against the bezel. A Deepsea Ref. 2005 rated 300m followed. These watches were built for work rather than marketing, and Breitling's lack of aggressive promotion around them meant they were quickly overshadowed in collector memory by the Submariner and Fifty Fathoms.
The Superocean faded through the 1970s quartz crisis and survived under the Schneider-family Breitling as a secondary line behind the Navitimer and Chronomat. The Heritage collection, launched in 2007 on the 50th anniversary, was the first serious attempt to reclaim the 1957 identity, but the real inflection point came in 2017 when Georges Kern took over as CEO after fifteen years at IWC. Kern audited Breitling's archive and re-anchored the brand around three historical pillars: Navitimer for aviation, Chronomat for sport, and Superocean for the water.
Under Kern, Breitling re-issued the Superocean across a deeply researched historical series: the Superocean Heritage '57 (2020) recreates the 1957 Ref. 1004 proportions, the Superocean Heritage '57 Outerknown adds ECONYL recycled-nylon straps, the Superocean Heritage '65 (2022) revives the mid-60s slow-motion concept, and the 2023 Superocean '64 Deepsea Bronze reanimates the deep-rated 1964 variant. Alongside the heritage line, the modern Superocean family (36mm, 42mm, 44mm, 46mm) offers 300-1,000m water resistance, ceramic bezels, and the in-house Cal. B20 automatic. Retail runs from approximately $5,050 (Superocean Automatic 42) to $12,500+ (Superocean Chronograph 44 in bronze).
