The history of LeJour is deeply rooted in their partnerships with other brands. LeJour was a French Distributor of watches and had many brand agreements with large watch manufactures. One of these agreements was with Heuer. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Heuer produced watches under private label arrangements which were then sold by these companies. LeJour was one of them. LeJour is also famously known for being the US based distributor for Yema.

The watch we are looking at today is a LeJour reference 7000 from the 1970’s. The watch is a great example of the partnerships Heuer had with other private labels, as the design for this watch can be seen in other watches, like the Heuer Pasadena and the Porsche Design watch work by Tom Cruise in Top Gun. The case design for these watches were identical as well as the PVD finish to the case.

The reference 7000 is a chronograph from LeJour that features a day and date complication at 3 o’clock. The watch is 41mm in diameter, but with somewhat integrated lugs into the case, the watch fits smaller. The case has a black PVD finish to it, which is not something you see as often with modern watches. Looking at the dial, it has sub-dial registers for the 30 minute and 12 hour counters at 12 and 1 o'clock, and then the second sub-dial at 9. The hour indicators have a nice brown patina to them which actually stand out against the black motif this watch has.

The watch is running on the Valjoux 7750, an automatic workhorse movement that was used in many watches of this era. The chronograph is quite stiff to start and super easy to stop and reset. The placement of the day and date are non-intrusive to the overall layout of the dial. Something about about this era - they got their dial layouts and proportions down. The watch comes on a Di-Modell racing strap that is black and red and looks great with this sleek watch. It certainly is a pleasure to wear.

The watch is available on our store here.

Enjoy!