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TAG Heuer Carrera

Posted 20th May 2011

TAG Heuer has the kind of affinity with motor racing that is only earned via a long and dedicated involvement at the forefront of the sport. During the 40’s and 50’s, Heuer was supplying timers that could be dashboard mounted in rally cars to time the stages, and it was there that the seed was sown.

Jack Heuer’s innovative and entrepreneurial mind landed a sponsorship deal with Formula 1 driver Jo Siffert, and Heuer became the first non-motorsport related brand painted on the side of the most advanced racing cars in the world. It was Jack’s personal deal with Jo to buy a Porsche from his dealership that launched a conversation about sponsorship, which in turn sparked the beginning of a multi-billion advertising industry.

In 1950, just as the last section of the Pan-American Highway (that originally connected the USA to Argentina) was completed, a great race was held along its entire length. Dubbed, ‘Carrera Panamericana,’ carrera being Spanish for race, it was held annually between 1950 and 1955 and was home to some of the most gruelling terrain on any rally stage ever. As part of the World Sportscar Championship, it was considered to be one of the most dangerous races of any type in the world.

This inspired Jack Heuer to develop a chronograph unlike any that had been before it. He wanted it to have a unique and instantly recognisable look, as well as being very easy to read. Thus, the Carrera was born, released in 1963. One of the most distinctive changes added to the watch was the repositioning of the tachymeter from the outer edge of the dial to the rehaut, the tapered spacer between the dial and the crystal. This cleared the dial itself up considerably, making it cleaner and easier to read.

Various iterations of the Carrera were produced between its launch and the early 1980’s, when the quartz revolution crippled many traditional watch brands. Jack left Heuer promptly after the takeover by TAG (Techniques d’Avant Garde), a supplier of the turbo’d Formula 1 engines at the time. TAG embraced the brand and gave it direction through its low years, using its solid financial footings to market the brand successfully enough to bring it back to the forefront.

The Carrera continued in many new iterations such as the Grand Carrera, that brought together the new and the old, a watch immediately recognisable as Heuer but with the forward thinking design of TAG. With a stable range and good sales behind it again, TAG Heuer had a platform to release both re-editions of the vintage Carrera’s (most notably the Heuer branded ones previewed at Baselworld 2011) and also concept watches that pushed the boundaries both with design and function. Such watches as the Calibre 36, penned by the designer of the Enzo, and the Mikrograph Flying 1000 that can measure 1/1000th of a second, both demonstrate that TAG Heuer is a brand that is looking forward rather than dwelling on a successful, but otherwise out-dated past. We can expect to see many good things from them in the future.