Alternative version of the Chronomatic Heuers?
Without doubt the most fabled of the Heuer Monaco, Autavia and Carrera lines are those rare watches that carry the “Chronomatic” marking on the dial- a combination of the words “Chronograph” and “Automatic”. The very first Calibre 11 models released in 1969 have the Chronomatic marking on the dial, but these were only produced for a short time until Heuer replaced Chronomatic with the words “Automatic Chronograph” and moved the model name from below the hands to above the Heuer shield.
If you can find a Chronomatic Heuer, then buy it irrespective of condition- they command a very substantial premium over the later Calibre 11 models.
I’ve recently been looking around the website of the late Chuck Maddox, the renowned Heuer and Vintage watch aficionado. Chuck’s site contains a vast range of information, photos and articles written by Chuck up to the time of his untimely passing last year. Chuck’s blog is preserved here http://www.chronomaddox.com and it is well worth taking the time to visit.
In looking through some of Chuck’s photos I came across a scan of a brochure from Chronosport who were the distributor of Heuer and other Chronographs in the UK in the 1970′s. The brochure has no date, but as it features the Chronomatic Heuer trio, it must be from 1969. What is interesting is the pictures of the Monaco, Autavia and Carrera, which are unlike any of the Chronomatic Heuers that I’ve seen before- take a look at these scans
Note that none of the Chronomatic models has the model name (Monaco, Autavia, Carrera) on the dial and has the word “Chronomatic” below than hands rather than above the Heuer shield. Its hard to be sure from the blurry images, but it also looks like the models used for these photo’s have different second hands than the final production version.
Would be interesting to hear whether anyone has seen one of these models- or were they pre-production models used only for photographs?
Photo: onthedash.com
Catalog scan: http://www.chronomaddox.com/heuer/catalogs/chronosport/
Hi, David, I just came accross this article and an interesting observation, what if these were the predecessors of the Chronomatics we're used to seeing in. Perhaps one day one will turn up and then these we'll be worth more than the ones we've seen.
~George