Fortis Watches History
1912 - Fortis watches was founded by Walter Vogt in the Swiss village of Grechen, it is still based there today.
1924 - Walter Vogt met John Harwood, this would prove to be a decisive year. Harwood had found in Vogt an industrial partner who believed in his 'automatic wristwatch' concept.
1926 - The 'Harewood Automatic' the first self winding wristwatch in production attracted massive interest at the Basle fair.
1930 - The legendary Fortis 'Rolls' automatic wristwatch was produced with a winding system created by Leon Hatot of Paris.
1931 - Fortis Produce the Autorist with a John Harewood invented mechanism. Movements of the strap and the way it was attached to the watch provided the power
1943 - The 'Fortissimo' watch becomes one of their most successful models being the first waterproof watch from Switzerland.
1962 - The 50th anniversary of Fortis sees the 'Stratoliner' and the 'Spacematic' watch with the latter a 25 atmospheres tested absolutely water resistant watch chosen by the American astronauts team that year.
1965 - For the American market: the "FORTIS-Cobra", a most striking design which was a real hit and enormous success in those swinging times.
1975 - FORTIS set the pace in watch fashion with the "Flipper quartz leader" model, a great success in more than 40 countries the following years.
1994 - After two years of testing and preparation the Yuri Gagarin Russian State Scientific-Research Test Center of Cosmonauts Training in Star City chose the FORTIS OFFICIAL COSMONAUTS CHRONOGRAPH to be part of their cosmonauts official equipment.
1996 -
After a successful
launch of the FORTIS Cosmonauts and Pilot's collection in Europe FORTIS started
its market approach with a spectacular debut in Asia
1998 - The Hungarian Air
Force uses the FORTIS Pilot Professional Chronograph Automatic to equip their
pilots. The 47th tactical fighter regiment fly with FORTIS.
The international awarded painter and sculptor Gerd Winner has created an individually numbered and a limited wristwatch collection, the WINNER EDITION.