TAG Heuer Releases New Carreras, Continuing their Anniversary Celebration

As we’ve reported previously, 2020 marks an anniversary year for TAG Heuer, as they celebrate 160 years since the founding of the original Heuer brand. To mark the occasion, this year is all about the Carrera. This is extremely fitting, as it’s quite possibly the most iconic product line in an extremely extensive back catalog, even as it has proven to be a bit of a chameleon over the years. It’s a watch that is always very much of its time, regardless of what that time is. For some, the Carrera is the platonic ideal of what a sports watch from the 1960s should be. But the Carrera has also been a blank canvas for TAG Heuer to innovate, and was the vehicle for some extremely high frequency chronographs in the last decade. There were plenty of unusual case shapes through the 70s. These new watches are similarly very much grounded in 2020, offering modern watchmaking technology and contemporary styling to a new generation of Carrera consumers.

TAG Heuer Carrera Sport Chronograph

• Case Material: Stainless steel
• Dial: Black, blue, green
• Dimensions: 44mm
• Crystal: Sapphire         
• Water Resistance: 100 meters
• Crown: Push/pull                       
• Movement: Calibre Heuer 02
• Strap/bracelet: Stainless steel bracelet  
• Price: $5,750 ($6,550 with gold accents)
• Reference Number: CBN2A1B.BA0643, CBN2A1A.BA0643, CBN2A10.BA0643, CBN2A5A.FC6481
• Expected Release: July 2020

The idea behind the Carrera has always been to deliver a clean, legible dial above all else. As with other legacy Heuer chronos, the Carrera is a watch with genuine racing heritage, where a quick accounting of elapsed time is critical. To that end, each of the new Carrera Sport Chronographs seen here have both subtle and obvious features that make legibility a cinch. The dials, for instance, have a brushed finish, which should reduce reflections when checking the time. Hour markers have been slanted inward, drawing the eye to the center of the watch, where it’s easy to read current and elapsed time at a glance. Also, and this should be fairly obvious, the watch is just big. At 44mm in diameter, the dial is expansive in a way that vintage chronographs typically are not. 

This collection features three watches in stainless steel cases that employ alternating brushed and polished finishing. The blue and black dial variants have matching ceramic tachymeter bezels, while the green dialed Carrera is paired with a bezel in stainless steel. There’s also a black dialed version with rose gold accents on the dial, bezel, crown, and pushers. The application of gold here is really well done and fairly restrained in my opinion, stopping short of an 80s style two-tone approach that can often appear gaudy and dated. The pure steel colorways are also nice, and appear to me to be right in the heart of modern steel chrono territory with the ceramic touches.

There’s also the movement to consider. These Carreras use the Calibre Heuer 02 movement, which is made in-house at TAG Heuer, utilizes a vertical clutch and column wheel, and can run for 80 hours under full power. In terms of a feature set, the movement rivals those made by other big Swiss houses like Rolex and Zenith in the competitive realm of in-house Swiss automatic chronographs.

As mentioned above, these Carreras are 44mm in diameter, taking them out of the discussion for many enthusiasts who prefer smaller case sizes. These watches will be, and already have been, criticized as too large and too mainstream, and as high priced mall fare designed to appeal to people who might not be as well schooled in horological history as many who read this site. But that’s a feature, not a bug. These watches, as permanent additions to the TAG Heuer catalog, likely allow the brand to produce the more niche, limited efforts that enthusiasts go crazy for, like this year’s first 160th anniversary Carrera introduced back in January. And as a marker of what sports watches look like in 2020, it’s right in line with what the Carrera has always been. TAG Heuer