Article: The GQ Guide to TAG Heuer

One of the most important brands in watchmaking history is also one of the most familiar to motorsport fans. Here we examine its history and pick the watches that make TAG Heuer a perennial winner

Founded in 1860, it took just over a century for Heuer (later TAG Heuer) to find its horological niche – era-defining sports-focused steel-cased chronographs that have since become a byword for Sixties and Seventies cool.

This fact alone continues to afford TAG Heuer a rare reputational advantage in the vintage market (see the Phillips sale of the Crosthwaite & Gavin collection of 41 vintage Heuer chronographs last year), but was still a long way off when Edouard Heuer established his workshop in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. Yet, by the outbreak of the First World War the family-run business was already offering wrist-worn chronographs and in 1916 it "split the horological atom", so to speak, with the launch of stopwatches capable of measuring to 1/100th of a second.

However, it would take the arrival into the business of Edouard’s great-grandson, Jack Heuer, in 1958, to add the precocious design and provocative innovation needed to ensure its survival in the decades to come.

Heuer had been no stranger to firsts. In 1887, Edouard developed the oscillating pinion – a pioneering approach to coupling the separate elements of a chronograph function and a chronometer that is still used today. In 1962, an Heuer stopwatch became the first Swiss-made timepiece into orbit when John Glenn flew one on the first US manned spaceflight.

The same year, Jack launched the now-highly collectible Autavia – followed 12 months later by the equally legendary Carrera – thereby inaugurating what is considered the heyday of Heuer, in which its sporting chronographs enjoyed a near-symbiotic relationship with motorsport.

But it was the launch of arguably the world’s first integrated automatic chronograph movement – christened the Chronomatic – in 1969 that made the brand’s name: the following year, Jack unveiled the square-cased Monaco, a watch that would go on to define a decade after it appeared on the wrist of Steve McQueen in the 1971 film Le Mans.

A timekeeping association with Ferrari would further secure Heuer’s association with world-class motorsport (it would go on to become an official timekeeper of F1) but the business itself was in trouble – challenged by the quartz revolution it had helped develop and the near-collapse of the integrated industry that constituted high-end Swiss watchmaking. In 1982, Jack was forced out and the family-owned firm sold to a consortium led by Piaget and Nouvelle Lemania. Three years later it was sold again, to Middle Eastern investment house Techniques d’Avant Garde (TAG), who renamed the brand “TAG Heuer”.

The new moniker brought a new approach: starting with the introduction of a new Formula 1 collection, clearly inspired by the success Swatch was currently enjoying with its plastic-cased, pop-coloured quartz-run pieces.

And it was in the field of motorsport that the brand would continue to dominate, building on Jack’s marketing genius with a highly successful association with Ayrton Senna that clearly found favour with LVMH, which took control of the brand in 1999.

Since then, there's been a coordinated campaign of rereleases as well as "reimaginings" of heritage pieces, including the cushion-cased Monza (based on a Carrera model) and the Targa Florio (inspired by a vintage pilot watch and therefore bearing no relation to the famed Sicilian road race for which it's named).

The Autavia, meanwhile, has undergone two rebirths: once as a "left-hand drive" 2003 model that went on to become something of a collector’s item and again in 2017, when a crowd-sourced selection process (re)delivered a Sixties style once worn by racing driver Jochen Rindt.

Evolutions within the Carrera and Monaco collections have been even more pronounced. In 2005, TAG Heuer announced a renewed commitment to high-precision watchmaking with the Carrera concept 360, the first mechanical wristwatch capable of timing to 1/100th of a second. And in 2012 it unveiled the Mikrogirder, a hairspring-less, magnet-driven movement capable of measuring to 1/2,000th of a second. Underlining all this bandwidth are anniversary pieces celebrating this year's 55th birthday of the Carrera: a true-to-form 36mm time and date version and its first in-house GMT chronograph housed in the striking new COSC-certified Heuer 02 collection.

The Monaco collection has similarly hosted some radical thinking (the belt-driven V4 from 2004) while serving as a "hero product" – today telegraphed in heritage-inspired dial and strap iterations alongside a third-party "makeover" by Bamford Watch Department.

Today, TAG Heuer is in the enviable position of being able to offer watches for less than £1,000 (quartz versions of its redoubtable F1 collection) as well as an haute-horological bargain in the shape of its COSC-certified 02T tourbillon for £13,650. And throw in the first "high-end" response to the smartwatch with its Modular 45 model and it's clear that where this particular gamechanger is concerned, there's a whole load of horological hardware to choose from. So to make things simple, here are three current totems of the TAG Heuer story to look out for...

On the starting line


Formula 1 Aston Martin
What started life as a timely response to the rise of quartz and the success of Swatch has grown into a collection that regularly uses premium materials and, in some models, automatic movements. Thankfully the spirit of the original series survives in the new-for-2018 TAG Heuer Formula 1 chronograph inspired by Aston Martin Racing. Cased in steel and, at 43mm, no shrinking violet compared to its ancestors, the new Formula 1 nevertheless shares their bold use of materials (including a black opalin dial and matt-black aluminium bezel) and a quartz movement capable of measuring to 1/10th of a second. A trusty tribute to the legendary motor-racing marque, and a handsome way into the brand most closely associated with the sport. £1,250

Going up a gear

Carrera Heuer 02 Chronograph GMT
Carreras have been offered before with this useful complication – initially as the Twin Time – but this is the first occasion TAG Heuer has been able to offer its in-house 02 calibre with a GMT function. Otherwise, this shares the 3-6-9 dial layout of the original 1963, albeit in a much larger 45mm case (the Carrera started life at a relatively winsome 36mm). The second time zone is read the using the red hand, but connoisseurs will note the non-uniform blue-black ceramic bezel used in preference to the more widely found (since Rolex launched its GMT-Master) red and blue. A cool touch for a daring watch. £5,900

The overall winner


Monaco Gulf 2018 Special Edition
The ur-watch for most motorsport fans (and many more who are not), the Monaco’s history (see above) risks overshadowing its horological importance as the world’s first square-cased waterproof watch, featuring an automatic chronograph movement. Since then, it's benefited from numerous upgrades, including sapphire case backs, three-part cases and a higher level of finish. And to mark this year’s global partnership with another icon of motor racing, Monaco sports the equally famous blue and orange stripes of Gulf Oil International, in concert with several attributes of the original timepiece, notably the the crown on the left, a vintage Heuer logo and, of course, the legendary Calibre 11 (né Chronomatic) movement. £4,750