Enicar

Ariste Racine founded Enicar in 1914; the brand name is his surname spelt backwards. The company became known for robust sports watches after supplying watches to Swiss Himalayan expeditions in the 1950s, which it promoted under the Sherpa name, including divers' watches with internal rotating bezels set from the crown and the Sherpa Graph chronographs.

Enicar declined in the quartz era; the name was later used mainly in Asian markets.

Enicar was based in La Chaux-de-Fonds before moving its production to Lengnau, near Biel, and from the 1950s it made many of its own movements, marked 'AR' after the Racine family; its logo, a ringed planet like Saturn, appears on dials, crowns and case backs. Dials often also carry the word 'Ultrasonic', the name Enicar gave to its ultrasonic movement-cleaning process.

The Himalayan connection gave the brand its identity: Enicar watches went with the Swiss expedition of 1956, which made the first ascent of Lhotse and the second of Everest, and the Sherpa name was then used for most of the sports line. The Sherpa divers' watches used compressor cases made by the case maker EPSA, whose seals tighten under water pressure, with an inner rotating bezel set by a second crown; the Sherpa Graph chronographs used bought-in chronograph calibres, and the Sherpa Jet added a 24-hour hand and bezel for a second time zone.

Like many medium-sized Swiss firms, Enicar was badly hit by quartz watches in the 1970s and 1980s, and the brand name later passed to owners who sold it mainly in Asia. Vintage Sherpa models of the 1950s–1970s are now the most collected Enicar watches.