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TAG Heuer Launches Special Edition Carrera Porsche Chronograph

TAG Heuer and Porsche, which share deep ties to the world of auto racing, expand their collaboration this week with the TAG Heuer Carrera Porsche Chronograph, the first TAG Heuer watch that pairs imagery from the two brands.

The new TAG Heuer Carrera Porsche Chronograph
 Special Edition 44 mm Caliber Heuer 02 Automatic.

The new watch adds a host of Porsche automotive references to TAG Heuer’s recent, well-received Carrera Sport Chronograph design. Most noticeable is TAG Heuer’s widespread use of the Porsche dashboard font on both the bezel of the new watch and to denote the watch’s primary indexes, which are numbered to echo a speedometer. TAG Heuer also places the Porsche name prominently, in red, at the top of the bezel.

Furthermore, TAG Heuer utilizes red, black, and grey colors prominently on the new watch, echoing Porsche’s frequent use of the same hues. On the watch’s Caliber Heuer 02 automatic movement, TAG Heuer also places the names ‘Porsche’ and ‘TAG Heuer’ on the rotor, which is visible through the sapphire caseback.

Furthermore, TAG Heuer colors the dial to mimic asphalt in order to emphasize a ‘passion for the road,” according to the brand.  

TAG Heuer has collaborated with Porsche on a variety of ventures for decades, most recently since 2014 with the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team and on the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). This year we’ll see series partnerships in ten editions of the worldwide one-make cup series Porsche Carrera Cup. TAG Heuer also engages in virtual racing by supporting the Porsche TAG Heuer E-sports Supercup.

Both companies are set to expand their collaborations. Porsche, for example, is running its own golf activities like the Porsche Golf Cup, and since 2015 has sponsored the Porsche European Open golf tournament. TAG Heuer has announced that it will join both these events. 

The watch will be sold on a calf leather strap with Porsche-style stitching, or on an interlocking race-style steel bracelet. TAG Heuer will deliver the Carrera Porsche Chronograph in packaging with a black watch box that features the logos of TAG Heuer and Porsche in white. Inside the box is a black travel pouch that boasts a Porsche red interior.

Price: $5,850 (leather strap) and $6,050 (steel bracelet).

Specifications:  TAG Heuer Carrera Porsche Chronograph
 Special Edition 44 mm Caliber Heuer 02 Automatic

References: CBN2A1F.FC6492 (leather strap) and CBN2A1F.BA0643 (steel bracelet)

Movement: Caliber Heuer 02 automatic chronograph with 80-hour power reserve, vertical clutch and column wheel.

Case: 44 mm steel polished, fine brushed; ceramic black tachymeter fixed bezel, Porsche inscription. 
Domed and beveled sapphire crystal with double anti-reflective treatment. Steel crown at 3 o’clock with red accent. 
Steel screw-down sapphire case back with special engraving
. Water resistance to 100 meters.

Dial: Grey asphalt color with three black chronograph counters. Black gold plated applied indexes with white SuperLuminova rhodium-plated hour and minute hands with white SuperLuminova rhodium-plated central hand w/red tip. 
TAG Heuer applied logo, 
date at 6 o’clock.

Strap/Bracelet: 
Embossed black calf leather strap with hand stitching; calf skin black lining and steel folding clasp with double safety push-buttons (on reference CBN2A1F.FC6492), or steel H-shape bracelet with steel folding clasp with double safety push-buttons (on reference 
CBN2A1F.BA0643)

Price: $5,850 (leather strap) and $6,050 (steel bracelet).

 

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Watch Of The Day

Piaget Skeletonizes its Steel Polo

Piaget has skeletonized its luxury sport Polo steel watch, creating an airy new open-worked dial framed by the Polo’s famed cushion-shaped dial cutout, rounded bezel and curved case. And, with a notably thinner case, the new Piaget Polo Skeleton mingles Polo’s chic legacy with Piaget’s identity as a groundbreaking force in ultra-thin watches.

The new Piaget Polo Skeleton, with blue PVD Caliber 1200S movement and steel bracelet.

In order to create a thin Polo Skeleton, Piaget designed a new 42mm steel case that still echoes the familiar shape of the all-gold 1979 Polo debut. That shape was most recently revived in 2016 when Piaget debuted a new-generation sporty Polo collection cased in steel.

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With this new skeleton model, Piaget introduces a new steel Polo case that measures a wispy 6.5mm thick, thirty-percent thinner than the 9.4mm cases that define current non-skeleton Polo offerings.

Equally critical here is Piaget’s work to create a pared-down version of its caliber 1200S, the ultra-thin automatic skeleton movement Piaget places within its existing Piaget Altiplano skeleton models, among others. The same Altiplano collection also includes a range of ultra-thin watches featuring Piaget’s award-winning (and even thinner) ultra-thin 910P and 900P calibers.

Robust yet thin

Piaget says that despite the leaner movement and case, its new Polo Skeleton will still act like a general sports watch. This seems fair, but the watch’s sportiness is limited as the watch demonstrates water resistance to a basic thirty meters, which will keep the Caliber 1200S movement free of moisture while worn in the rain but prevent it from being rated for diving. The movement’s platinum rotor does contribute to the robust forty-four hours of power reserve.

Piaget is offering its new Polo Skeleton with two designs – the first with a movement in Piaget Blue PVD and the second in a slate gray finish. Piaget places the watch on an interchangeable steel bracelet that allows the wearer to quickly change the look of the watch by attaching a leather strap. Piaget provides one leather strap with each watch.

Price: $28,500.

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The Watches

Bulgari Composes a Modernistic Chiming Watch with Tourbillon

With Bulgari’s contemporary style clearly evident throughout its record-setting Octo Finissimo collection, the Italian-Swiss watchmaker’s modernist approach to timepiece design is hardly in doubt. This week, Bulgari underscored that approach beyond its ultra-thin family with the new Octo Roma Carillon Tourbillon, a surprising cutting-edge addition to its Haute Horlogerie collection.

The new Bulgari Octo Roma Carillon Tourbillon.

The new watch represents an extension of Bulgari’s well-known mastery of the chiming watch, seeded to a large degree twenty years ago years ago when it purchased Gerald Genta and Daniel Roth, two horological ateliers well versed in complicated watchmaking. That deep knowledge, nurtured and enhanced within Bulgari’s workshops over the years, is the underpinning of the brand’s rise to prominence within the world of haute horology.

Three hammers

The new Octo Roma Carillon Tourbillon features a three-hammer chime combined with a tourbillon regulator, with both complex technical creations housed in a 44mm black DLC-coated titanium case.

In contrast to the brand’s Octo Roma Grande Sonnerie from a few years back, this newest chiming model betrays few classical design elements on its dial. Rather than a solid dial with markers and numerals, the wearer sees a black titanium grid open to show the watch’s tourbillon and its chimes in action.

And while the three hammers and gongs appear traditional in shape and function, their placement on the dial side is still fairly unusual among chiming watches.

Bulgari says it has hollowed out the titanium case in order to reduce the amount of metal between the inside and the outside, thus enhancing the transmission of sound. The new case design includes three openings, each of which corresponds to a chime.

As Bulgari explains, “Chimes are fixed directly on to the case body for most effective transmission of sound and the case is crafted in titanium to ensure the clearest possible diffusion of sound. The back is also hollowed and revamped with a meticulously crafted titanium grid that protect this resonance zone and allow sound to be transmitted to the outside.”

Bulgari’s new, manually wound Caliber BVL428, which includes 432 components, features hand crafted gongs that Bulgari artisans harden at high temperatures, which gives the metal a bright sound. The melody of the Carillon plays the note C for the hours, the mid-re-C notes in sequence for the quarters, and the mid note for the minutes.

The new Bulgari Octo Roma Carillon Tourbillon, flanked by the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Minute Repeater Carbon (left) and the Grande Sonnerie Perpetual Calendar (right).

The sound

Listening the Bulgari Octo Roma Carillon digitally, and not in person, is pleasing, even uplifting. Given Bulgari’s history of making exceptional chiming watches, I strongly suspect a live performance of the chime will live up to the brand’s grand descriptions.

Bulgari has equipped the movement with one classical barrel ensuring a power reserve of at least seventy-five hours for the movement at full charge. The functioning of the sound mechanism is ensured by a spring that the watchmaker has placed into a barrel-shaped container drilled directly in the bridge.

The watch comes on a black alligator leather strap with a three-blade folding clasp treated with DLC Titanium. Bulgari will offer the Octo Roma Carillon available as a limited edition of fifteen, with each piece engraved individually on the crown. Price: $259,000.

Specifications: Bulgari Octo Roma Carillon Tourbillon

Movement: Mechanical manufacture caliber BVL428 with manual winding, minute repeater, 3-hammer carillon with Westminster chime, tourbillon and a power reserve indicator; 75-hour power reserve, 21,600 vph, skeletonized movement with bridges in black DLC coated titanium (8.35mm thick);

Case: 44mm black DLC-coated titanium with matte finish; open-worked titanium middle-case, specially conceived to enhance sound performances; white gold crown, set with a black ceramic insert; white gold push button to activate the chime.

Dial: Black DLC-coated titanium grid, exposing tourbillon and chiming components. 

Strap: Black rubberized alligator leather with black DLC coated titanium 3-blade folding buckle.

Price: $259,000. Limited edition of fifteen pieces.

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Watch Of The Day

Arnold & Son Celebrates Year of the Ox

Arnold & Son offers a spectacular eight-piece limited edition of its Perpetual Moon watch in celebration of the traditional Chinese calendar New Year. As the Year of the Ox (or Buffalo) begins on February 12, the 42mm red gold Perpetual Moon Year of the Ox watch displays its extra-large mother-of-pearl moon at the top of its dial shining on an ox with large horns standing at 6 o’clock.

The Arnold & Son 42mm red gold Perpetual Moon Year of the Ox.

The ox appears as a miniature 18-karat gold sculpture placed in front of several multi-story pagodas, hand-painted with gold powder. Arnold & Son has generously painted the moon and the pagoda windows with SuperLuminova. Thus, in a dark setting the wearer views a pleasing, miniature evening scene.

In its unusually large aperture, the watch’s moon disc turns as the moon progresses from new to full and back each month. During the day, the moon appears nearly white amid hand-painted constellations, nicely contrasting with the dial’s textured and speckled black background.

Arnold & Son creates that darkness with specular hematite, a mineral the company laminates and layers to heighten its natural glossy appearance. The hematite’s iron composition creates iron, which appear as silvery flakes in a black mass.

Arnold & Son has also incorporated those glittering specks into the double-sided alligator-skin strap. On the strap’s outer face you’ll see them sparkle, embellished with platinum-thread stitching.

The La Chaux-de-Fonds-based manufacture fits the watch with its own Caliber A&S1512, a single-barrel manual-wind movement with an oscillation frequency of 3 Hz, offering an outstanding ninety-hour power reserve. Arnold & Son says that the caliber’s moon-phase display and rotation will remain accurate for 122 years before deviating by one day from the actual appearance of the moon in the night-sky.

 

Price: CHF 49,900, limited edition of eight

 

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Featured News

Hublot Adds Color to Ceramic Big Bang Integral

One year after debuting the Big Bang Integral, Hublot this week announced three colorful ceramic additions to the multi-material collection.

The debut is just one of a broad set of Hublot debuts announced this week as part of LVMH Watch Week 2021. Other Hublot debuts include a first-ever orange-hued Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Sapphire, new Classic Fusion offerings in the Orlinski collection, a new size within the Big Bang One Click collection and two additions in the tonneau-shaped Spirit of Big Bang collection.

We’ll show you many of these Hublot debuts in upcoming posts, but first let’s take a look at Hublot’s additions to its Big Bang Integral collection.

One of three new ceramic Hublot Big Bange Integral offerings.

Premiere bracelets   

As the first Hublot Big Bang model with an integrated bracelet, Integral in 2020 earned accolades for broadening Big Bang’s appeal to include collectors who prefer bracelet watches.

Hublot anticipated the demand and wisely launched with a wide-ranging 42mm debut to include titanium and King Gold cases, plus a single, limited-edition example with a black ceramic case. The Integral collection is also notable for reviving the rectangular pushers originally found on the Big Bang in 2005. More recent Big Bang models utilize round pushers.

The initial Hublot Big Bang Integral debut in 2020 included models in King Gold and in titanium.

With the 2021 debuts, Hublot adds white, dark blue and grey case options to the ceramic Big Bang Integral family tree. The newest ceramic models retain the 42mm case size of the initial black ceramic debut from 2020, but more clearly state their source material thanks to the new color options.

These watches are made entirely from ceramic except for the bezel lugs, which are in black, dark blue or grey composite, and the rubber elements on the crown and the pushers, which Hublot says its includes for “added user comfort.”

Lightweight, colorful

Because the Integral is defined by the inclusion (the integration) of a bracelet, these new ceramic models are particularly distinctively on the wrist. And their unique qualities are more than visual. High-tech ceramic is thirty percent lighter by weight than a comparable amount of steel, a factor instantly felt when the watch is worn. Similarly, ceramic feels somewhat smoother on the skin, which also differentiates the ceramic Big Bang Integral from its gold or steel brethren.

The Hublot Unico HUB1280 automatic flyback chronograph movement with column wheel and an impressive 72-hour power reserve.

Inside, Hublot fits its Unico HUB1280 automatic flyback chronograph movement with column wheel and an impressive 72-hour power reserve. Hublot reminds us that this caliber is a modified version of the earlier Unico HUB1242, with upgrades that include a thinner automatic winding system and four new and patented innovations: oscillating seconds clutch, chronograph friction system with ball-bearing adjustment, ratchet retaining system with unidirectional gears and index-assembly fine adjustment system.

Price: $23,100.

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