DOXA was founded in 1889 in the heart of one of Switzerland's major and most inventive watch making areas, the canton (district) of Neuchatel's Jura Mountains.
Today DOXA brings to the industry a perspective forged over a century of often pioneering watch design.
The founder
Georges Ducommun (1868-1936), the founder of DOXA, was born in Le Locle among the Jura hills of canton Neuchatel in Switzerland. He was one of 13 children of a poor family. At the age of 12, he became an apprentice in a manufacture specialised in casing-up watch movements.
He started his own watch repair business when he was 20. He worked hard to set up his business, walking the 10 kilometers to La Chaux-de Fonds to deliver his products personally, even in the depth of winter.
The success of his watches enabled him to live in Chateau des Monts, today home of the world-renowned Le Locle horological museum. From there he made the daily journey to his factory by carriage.
DOXA & Sportscars...
When the first horseless carriages appeared, George Ducommun became one of the region's first owners of an automobile. He had a garage built on his property and his own petrol pump...
At the beginning of the 30's, the fast evolution of aircraft and automobile industry put pressure on the watch-making industry, it was one of the greatest challenges ever for the watch manufacturers.
As an astute industrialist and passionable automobile owner, Georges Ducommun reacted to the evolving car racing market and started to develop instrument-panel clocks for cars (and aircraft). For those, he used a high-grade 8-day watch movement, which he had patented in 1908.
The greatest automobile manufacturer of that age, BUGATTI, equipped its famous race cars with DOXA 8-day movement instruments.
DOXA, Sportscars & Rallye Timers
The tight and emotional relationship between the automobile and watch-making industry has a long tradition and dates back to the beginning of the 20th century.
It was in the year of 1911, when the first board watch decorated early automobile dashboards.
Watch manufacturers put all their effort in the production of precise high-quality time-pieces for automobile dashboards in order to play a part in the evolving car racing industry.
DOXA's contribution to time-measurement in the race car history was the integration of its 1908 patented high-grade 8-day watch movement in the legendary instrument-panel board watch, nowadays known under the name
DOXA 8-DAYS.
The famous Bugatti Type 35 built from 1924 to 1931 was Bugatti's most successful sports car.
The greatest automobile manufacturer of that age, BUGATTI, equipped its famous race cars with DOXA 8-day movement instruments.
This high-grade legendary 8-day movement patented in 1908 by George Ducommun, DOXA's founder. The complicated movement has a power reserve of 8 days as the name implies. Each metal piece of the high-quality movement, each timer is assembled individually.