BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Despite its contemporary designs and a relatively young fanbase, TAG Heuer has been around for a long time. Quite a long time, actually. It’s celebrating its 160th birthday this year. Despite spending most of its lifetime called ‘Heuer’, TAG Heuer saw it fit to release another limited edition model from one of its most popular model ranges: the Carrera.
For this limited-edition special edition anniversary run thing, TAG Heuer has used the Carrera 45 Dato 3147 as a basis for the design. Well, maybe basis is the wrong word for it, perhaps artistic inspiration is a better phrase to use in this scenario because a quick Google search of the Carrera 45 Dato 3147 yields a watch that looks very different from what we’ve been presented with here.
The Heuer Carrera 45 Dato 3147 was a two-register chronograph with its date positioned at 12 O’clock above the Heuer logo. This new Carrera Sport Chronograph 160 Years Special Edition watch looks good, but it seems a lot more congested than the original. That would be down to the three-subdial layout. This watch now has a 12-hour chronograph whereas the original Dato 3147 could time events up to 45 minutes.
The new Carrera Sport Chronograph 160 Years Special Edition watch (not saying that mouthful again) uses the same modern-looking case with bracelet and bezel that other Carrera models use. That means you’re looking at a diameter of 44mm with short lugs that taper downwards and a solid steel H-link bracelet. There’s also a ceramic bezel on this one, if you go for the white circular brushed dial then that bezel is black, but it is blue on the blue circular brushed dial watch. The case is also 100m water resistant, but I wouldn’t expect the chronograph to be operable whilst submerged.
Inside the watches is the calibre Heuer 02 Automatic, which has a 4Hz beat rate, an 80-hour power reserve and a column wheel-operated chronograph. I also think it looks good, I happen to like this movement, and this particular one has a custom rotor design that’s unique to these watches (for now) and shows off the 160-year history of TAG Heuer.
Each one of these is a limited edition piece, both of which are limited to a very corporate 1860 examples (come on, 3720 watches in total, this could be a lot rarer if they wanted it to be). Each comes with a high price tag of $5950.
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