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Watches and Wonders 2023: TAG Heuer Celebrates Carrera 

At Watches and Wonders 2023 TAG Heuer adds two new Carrera watches that feature a new domed ‘Glassbox’ crystal.

One of two new 39mm Carrera Chronographs fit with a vintage-inspired Glassbox crystal.

One debut, a 39mm Carrera Chronograph, will arrive in two dial options and with an updated movement. The second is a Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon, a sister watch to a collection of previously introduced extra sporty Carrera tourbillon watches.

The new 42mm TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon is set under a Glassbox crystal.

In addition to these debuts, TAG Heuer adds color to two existing 42mm steel Carrera Chronographs. With a black or a blue dial, these new chronographs inject vivid orange detailing meant to recall the look of classic race car speedometers.

TAG Heuer also expands its Aquaracer nautical watch collection with an all-gold Aquaracer Professional 200 sporting a new movement, manufacture Caliber TH31-00, which delivers an 80-hour power reserve.

A second new Aquaracer Professional 200 series adds bi-color gold and steel models to the collection, offering four models in two case sizes: two at 40mm and another pair at 30mm. We’ll have more about TAG Heuer’s new expansion of the Aquaracer collection in an upcoming post. 

Glassbox Carreras

TAG Heuer continues to celebrate Carrera’s sixtieth anniversary with all these debuts. 

The new Glassbox chronographs are inspired in part by the reference 3147 “Dato 12” , the first Carrera with chronograph and calendar functions, and the rare reference 2447 NS.

But TAG Heuer looked to the 1970s for the inspiration for the new domed crystals that top these debuts, remaking in sapphire the hesalite crystals found on Carrera watches from that era.

The new crystal features a curve that flows seamlessly over the tachymeter scale, which runs around the dial edge and into the case. TAG Heuer has also added curves to the flange and indexes. 

The additional curvature pleases the eye and also means the tachymeter can be read from a wider range of angles. The new steel-cased chronographs also sport new pushers.

To kick-off the new collection, TAG Heuer offers one new model with a familiar blue dial on a blue calfskin leather strap. The second model debuts with a sportier black and silver ‘reverse panda’ dial (above) and comes on a black perforated calfskin leather strap.

Both of the new TAG Heuer Carrera Glassbox Chronographs are powered by Caliber TH20-00, an updated version of the Heuer 02. Visible through the clear sapphire caseback, the new movement now features enhanced decoration and a bi-directional oscillating weight. Earlier versions only charged the movement’s mainspring when rotating in one direction. Both are priced at $6,450. 

According to TAG Heuer Movements Director Carole Forestier, this new rotor design is a more significant change than you might imagine. When rotating daily, the new rotor is said to deliver faster and more reliable winding to ensure that the watch is more precise and that it is running closer to its maximum 80-hour power reserve.

Also new is the date display position. The date is at 6 o’clock on the blue-dialed model and at 12 o’clock on the ‘reverse panda’ version. Both new positions are said to clarify the wearer’s reading of the chronograph.

Chronograph Tourbillon

With the new Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon (above, $21,000), the watchmaker adds a sister model to the existing Carrera tourbillon, but here the tourbillon is framed (for the first time) with a smaller case (42mm) and a glass box crystal.

Echoing the look of the new Glassbox chronographs, the new tourbillon model is powered by Caliber TH20-09, TAG Heuer’s in-house tourbillon movement. This is a chronometer-certified automatic caliber with a chronograph function and an impressive sixty-five-hour power reserve.

With the Glassbox crystal, TAG Heuer expands the ability of the viewer to view the tourbillon. On the dial, TAG Heuer has curved the flange and indexes to both mirror and complement the edge of the crystal. 

New silver rings make the chronograph sub-dials especially easy to see while the chronograph’s central seconds hand is triangular shaped much like hands seen on 1960s race car dashboard instruments.

 

New 42mm Carrera Chronographs

One of two new 42mm Carrera Chronographs, each with new colorful dial accents.

In addition to its Glassbox debuts, TAG Heuer also adds new color options to existing 42mm Carrera Chronographs.

With a black or a blue dial, these new chronographs offer orange details. Both are powered by TAG Heuer’s Heuer 02, an in-house automatic chronograph movement, and both arrive on high-end calfskin straps. Price: $5,550.

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The Watches

TAG Heuer and Porsche Race to Sixth Design 

With the new TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Porsche Orange Racing, TAG Heuer and Porsche launch their sixth watch in the two years since the two companies became official partners.

The new TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Porsche Orange Racing

The new orange-tinged entry echoes recent partnership launches with its use of the excellent in-house Calibre Heuer 02, a  chronograph movement that boasts a column wheel, a vertical clutch and an impressive power reserve of eighty hours.

As its name implies, a vibrant racing orange highlights the new watch’s livery and can be seen on the Porsche logo on the bezel and on the crown in several dial details, including the chronograph counters and the seconds hand. The orange nicely contrasts with the 44mm black DLC case and the black dial.

 

TAG Heuer continues to utilize the same customized rotor here as is found on the earlier Porsche partnership designs. Visible through the sapphire back, the oscillating weight pays homage to the Porsche steering wheel and is labeled with the Porsche and TAG Heuer names.

 

As an added treat, TAG Heuer has even customized the column wheel by coloring it the same racing orange seen elsewhere on the watch. It’s a nice touch that perfectly ties together the racing and timing aspects of both TAG Heuer and Porsche.

 

TAG Heuer wraps up the theme with a carbon-like black calfskin strap with orange accents. The stitching on the strap is a nod to Porsche seat upholstery. 

TAG Heuer offers the new Carrera Chronograph x Porsche Orange Racing at TAG Heuer boutiques and via e-commerce as well as at retail partners.

Price: $7,050.

Specifications: TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Porsche Orange Racing 

(Ref. CBN2A1M.FC6526)

Movement: Caliber Heuer 02 Automatic, powering hours, minutes, seconds, chronograph. 

Dial:  Black vertical brushed, inspired by speed marks, orange outline, black flange with white markings.  Three orange-outlined counters: at 3 o’clock: black “azuré” minute chronograph counter; black gold plated, orange tip, polished hand; at 6 o’clock: black grained, matte permanent seconds indicator; black gold plated, orange tip, polished hand; at 9 o’clock: black “azuré” hour chronograph counter; black gold plated, orange tip, polished hand. 

Case: 44mm black DLC steel, black ceramic tachymeter fixed bezel, Porsche lettering, beveled, domed sapphire crystal with double anti-reflective treatment, black DLC and orange lacquered steel crown, black DLC steel screw-down sapphire case back with special engraving. Water resistance: 100 meters. 

Bracelet/strap: Soft touch, textured black calfskin leather strap with orange lining, black DLC steel folding clasp with double safety push buttons.

Price: $7,050. 

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The Watches

TAG Heuer Revives Monza With Color and Carbon

TAG Heuer earlier this month revived the cushion-cased Monza, one of the watchmaker’s historic auto-inspired designs, with a contemporary tribute that features a lightweight carbon case and an unusually colorful dial.

The new TAG Heuer Monza Flyback Chronometer.

The new TAG Heuer Monza Flyback Chronometer is a special edition with a 42-mm case and a two-register black dial with a translucent fumé blue sapphire crystal chronograph counter at 3 and the permanent second at 6 o’clock. Even more unusual is the luminescent blue date window, the blue lacquered indexes and the black and white lacquered, luminous hours and minutes hands.

TAG Heuer revived the Monza (which debuted in 1976 as one of the first black-cased watches) in the early 2000s, but offered infrequent updates since that initial reboot.

In addition to its almost startling colors and intense luminosity, the new watch retains the dark case but opens up its dial with a skeletonized layout that exposes an in-house Calibre Heuer 02 Flyback, a chronograph movement with COSC certification.

A new movement for Monza, the caliber is the watchmaker’s much-lauded chronograph movement with COSC certification. Previously TAG Heuer has only utilized the flyback chronograph in its contemporary collections inside the TAG Heuer Autavia.

TAG Heuer also includes the expected tachymeter scale here, but adds a pulsometer, which helps determine heart rate per minute. The rate might quicken as the wearer eyes his or her dial, especially with its luminescent blue and bright red chrono counter hands and date window frame.

TAG Heuer matches the blue hue on the TAG Heuer Monza Flyback Chronometer dial with the stitching on the included custom textile strap. 

Price: $13,850.

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Featured News

TAG Heuer Celebrates Carrera’s 60th Anniversary 

Within its LVMH Watch Week 2023 debut collection, TAG Heuer celebrates the six-decade anniversary of its Carrera with the new Carrera Chronograph 60th Anniversary, a 600-piece edition with a retro black and silver ‘panda’ dial.

The new TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph 60th Anniversary

In addition, the Le Locle watchmaker launches  a colorful Monza Flyback Chronometer ($13,850), reprises its light-powered TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 Solargraph ($3,050) and expands its Connected smartwatch collection.

The new light-powered TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 Solargraph.

 

The new TAG Heuer Monza Flyback Chronometer.

Below, we’ll look at the new Carrera celebratory debut. Look to upcoming posts for details about the new Monza Flyback, the Aquaracer Solargraph and the Connected debuts.

New Carrera

Since its debut in 1963, the Carrera has been a Heuer and TAG Heuer mainstay, representing the watchmaker’s deep connections to auto racing. By the late 1960s, Heuer offered the stylish Carrera reference 2447 SN with a either a silvered dial and black subdials, or the other way around, a design known respectively as ‘panda’ and ‘reverse panda’.

To celebrate Carrera’s sixty-year history, TAG Heuer’s new Carrera Chronograph 60th Anniversary reinterprets the original ‘panda’ version of the watch with a limited edition that mimics the original in faithful detail. 

The colors on the new edition are the same as the original, as are the black stripes down the central hands and hour markers, the double stops at 12, and the black counters with high-contrast white markings. Retro-fans will enjoy the vintage Heuer logo  with the Carrera monicker above it. Even the counter at 6 o’clock features the ‘Swiss’ rather than the modern ‘Swiss Made’.

Differences on the dial can be seen in the 60-minute and 12-hour counters, which here are reversed. In addition, you’ll not find the tritium indication (the letter T) on the dial for obvious reasons. 

TAG Heuer has protected the dial with a 39mm polished steel case and a glass box sapphire crystal. This retro style is underscored by the watch’s vintage pushers, beige luminescence and thin tension ring around the dial’s outer edge.

Inside, TAG Heuer fits its excellent Heuer 02, an in-house automatic chronograph caliber with a column-wheel and an eighty-hour power reserve. The modern caliber is also displayed in a contemporary manner with a clear sapphire caseback that reveals a special Carrera 60th Anniversary rotor.

TAG Heuer notes that this Carrera Chronograph 60th Anniversary is the first watch in planned series of releases to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Carrera.

Price: $7,400. 

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The Watches

2022 Favorites, Part I 

At the end of the year, it’s time to note our favorite 2022 debut watches. Starting today, and through the end of the week, we’ll re-acquaint you with our top timekeepers of the year.

Today, we re-post entries about our favorite 2022 debuts, in no particular order.  We’ll have additional entries throughout the week.  

The TAG Heuer Autavia 60th Anniversary Flyback Chronograph.

TAG Heuer: 60th Anniversary Autavia Flyback Chronograph

TAG Heuer in early 2022 fit a Caliber Heuer 02 COSC Flyback movement into two new Autavia 60th Anniversary Flyback Chronographs.

One of the two new flyback chronographs features a ‘panda’ style silver dial framed by a polished stainless-steel case. The second Autavia flyback model features an all black dial and black DLC-coated case. As a reminder, the flyback function makes it possible to reset the chronograph hand and immediately restart a new timing event.

Prices: $6,300 (silver dial flyback chronograph), $6,950 (black dial, black case flyback chronograph) and $4,200 (GMT). 

 

Delma: Blue Shark III Black Edition

Independent Swiss watchmaker Delma continues to swim with the sharks with a new dive watch made to venture far deeper than most of its similarly priced competitors.  

The new Delma Blue Shark III Black Edition, water resistant to an incredible 4,000 meters, retains this collection’s very sporty technical features, including professional-level helium escape valve and crown protection, but now offers added protection of a scratch resistant black DLC coating on its 47mm steel case.

Built as a limited edition of 300 pieces, the new watch is hyper-visible on a diver’s wrist with large luminous hands and indexes and luminous markers along its broad bezel. 

Delma is making 300 examples of the new Blue Shark III Black Edition in each of three dial colors: black, blue or orange dial. All three versions come with an additional black genuine rubber strap and a black DLC-coated buckle with tools for interchanging the bracelets.

Price: $2,750. 

 

RGM: Fat Arrow

American watchmaker Roland G. Murphy, whose eponymous Pennsylvania-based RGM Watches pioneered independent watchmaking in the United States, teamed with renowned watch photographer and artist Atom Moore to create a terrific limited edition series of ‘Fat Arrow’ military style watches.

The series, the Equation of Time Fat Arrow, reprises a late 2021 prototype developed by Moore and Murphy’s Equation of Time division, which specializes in watches designed with input from collectors.

Moore’s original dial art piece “Fat Arrow” is based on the name given to the World War II-era watches with the larger dial arrows, which were used to signify British military equipment.Starting with Moore’s Fat Arrow dial design, Murphy devised a complementary steel-cased 36mm military style watch.

Visible through the caseback is a manual-wind Sellita SW210-1 finished with Geneva stripes and radially brushed gears. Price: $2,995 (limited edition of 99).

 

Franck Muller: USA Limited Edition Bill Auberlen Vanguard Racing

The seconds indicator on the new Franck Muller USA limited edition Vanguard Racing Skeleton Bill Auberlen starts with double zero at the bottom of the dial, not at the top. This layout, while rare on a watch dial, allows seconds to be read from both ends of the seconds hand and echoes the dashboard Auberlen would see while piloting his racecar.

The dial layout is just one of many racer-friendly details that Franck Muller built into the sporty automatic watch. The watch is the latest Franck Muller model built with Auberlen’s direct. One of America’s most successful racecar drivers, Auberlen has won sixty-three races.   

Another example can be found in Franck Muller’s choice of case materials for the tonneau-shaped 44m by 53.7mm Vanguard watch. One version of the watch is built with carbon, the same ultra-light, high-performance material racecar makers utilize. Another version features an unusual blue-tinged high-tech composite called Technologie Bleu, which the watchmaker says is created by mixing ‘high purity metals and other exotic elements.’

Franck Muller offers its Vanguard Racing Skeleton Bill Auberlen in three case materials:  rose gold ($34,000), carbon ($27,400) and Macro molecular Technologie Bleu ($26,200). 

 

Frederique Constant: Classics Worldtimer Manufacture

Frederique Constant celebrated the tenth anniversary of its Classics Worldtimer Manufacture with a pair of attractive blue-and-grey-dialed limited edition references.  

In keeping with this Geneva brand’s ‘affordable luxury’ tenet, the Classics Worldtimer has been among the highest-value Swiss-made examples of it type, particularly as it’s supplied with an in-house worldtimer caliber (visible through the sapphire caseback).

We’ve seen Frederique Constant release the Classics Worldtimer Manufacture in a variety of hues and metals during the past decade. This new offering, in a choice of a rose gold or steel case, combines the most classic combination that represents the earth’s blue oceans surrounded by white clouds.

The worldtimer dial allows the time to be read in twenty-four time zones with clear daytime or nighttime indication. Frederique Constant applies luminescent indexes (and on the hands in the steel model) to the fairly traditional globe décor world time display. This all frames a handsome sunray guilloché date hand display at the 6 o’clock position. 

Prices: $4,695 (steel) and $21,995 (pink gold). 

 

G-Shock: GMWB5000RD-4

 Casio in 2022 added an eye-catching, all-new watch to the G-SHOCK Full Metal Series, the brand’s premium line. 

This GMWB5000RD-4 carries on the look and feel of the original G-Shock DW-5000C with its classic square case shape and digital display. To that, G-Shock adds a hard-to-miss red stainless-steel case with screw-on back. And while it looks fashionable, the bracelet is as tough as the case, according to G-Shock, as it is made of solid stainless steel, here finished with a red IP color and diamond-like carbon finish that matches the case.

G-Shock lets the wearer rest assured that the Full Metal watch’s fashionable good looks are accompanied with G-Shock technical features, including Bluetooth Connectivity via the G-Shock Connected app, and Multi-Band 6 Atomic Timekeeping for self-adjusting hour and date display virtually anywhere on earth.

Additional technical specifications include: shock resistance, 200-meters of water resistance, Super Illuminator LED light, world time in 39 cities, stopwatch, daily alarms, countdown timer, 12/24 Hr. formats and a full automatic calendar.

Price: $600.

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