We wants it… we neeeeeds it… the precioussss.
Sorry, small Gollum moment there. Where were we? Ah yes. We’d seen how silver was an important case material around the turn of the 20th century, before fairly quickly losing out to modern steels.
We’d seen gold make an appearance before becoming relatively uncommon in favour of gold-filled (where a layer of solid gold is bonded to a base metal) and later gold-plated watches (where a much thinner layer of gold (typically somewhere between 100 and as much as 100,000 times thinner than filled …

While the Mikrotimer Flying 1000 and Monza re-edition may have been the stars of TAG Heuer’s 2011 Baselworld releases, without a doubt the most important commercial model is the new Carrera Heritage range.

The Carrera Heritage line is a range of automatic watches and Chronographs that take the base template of the Carrera 1887 and add a “flinque” dial finish, bold coloured numerals and hands and a “heritage” font to the sub-dials and tachy bezel. In addition, TAG have designed the pushers of the Carrera Heritage to something closer to the …

While the big news to come from TAG Heuer’s pre-Basel collection last week was the Carrera Mikrograph, the release of the Carrera MP4-12C was just as eagerly anticipated, especially for the many fans who also closely follow the McLaren team on and off the track.
Last week we showed you the official press photos of the watch, but today we can bring you a detailed review from the launch that gives a better perspective of the intricate design of this Limited Edition watch, as well as an interview with TAG Heuer’s …

Without doubt the most discussed watch on Calibre 11 is the Carrera 1887, the new Carrera announced at Basel 2010 powered by the in-house Calibre 1887. Regular readers will know that the design of the watch has changed twice, with TAG Heuer showing a third version of the watch late last year.
There has been some confusion on the changes: why they happened and which markets would be getting which version. We asked Carrera designer Christoph Behling for his take on the changes when we spoke with him a few weeks …

There aren’t many watch companies today that don’t speak of their heritage- sepia photos of the famous watches from the past, the technological achievements and of course the stars who owned them. All of this is nice, but in the end meaningless unless the company of today is building watches worthy of that legacy and not just milking an old name.
And that’s what I like about TAG Heuer today- yes, there are the heritage models from the great legacy, but there are also genuine breakthroughs and innovations, such as the …

January 17 marks the opening of the TAG Heuer “Mastering Speed” exhibition in Geneva and to mark the occasion, three new models have been released. The first of these is the Carrera Mikrograph, the second is a Chronograph version of the Lady F1 series and the third is the Carrera MP4-12C- a new Carrera design inspired by TAG’s relationship with McLaren and the McLaren MP4-12C road car.
You may recall a series of articles posted here at Calibre 11 about the relationship between TAG Heuer and McLaren and the resulting watches- …

Having teased you with two partial photos over the last few weeks, today we can finally share with you the full pictures of the new Rose Gold Carrera Mikrograph, a Limited Edition of 150 watches and TAG’s first new watch for 2011.
The magic of the Heuer Carrera Mikrograph is the Mikrograph movement- a new TAG Heuer designed, developed and manufactured integrated COSC Chronograph movement that is capable of 1/ 100th second accuracy.
I mentioned in the earlier post that the Carrera Mikrograph drew on the heritage of the famous Mikrograph stopwatch …

With only ten days to go before TAG Heuer unveil the new 2011 Carrera Mikrograph, Calibre 11 can today bring you a second teaser image- this time of the Mikrograph movement. As you may recall from the last post on this watch, the Mikrograph is a new in-house movement that will initially power a Limited Edition Rose Gold Carrera (see image below).
The party-trick of the Mikrograph is its ability to time to 1/100th second accuracy- a feat that matches the Calibre 360 movement, which TAG Heuer developed, albeit never on …

It’s easy to get caught up in the hyperbole of writing about watches- reading most press releases you’d get the impression that every new model hand crafted in the Swiss Valleys was a ground-breaking chapter in that brands history. A technical and artistic revolution, all contained in a wristwatch.
But even with this warning in mind, let me put forward this view: the re-edition of the 1964 Heuer Carrera from 1996 is the single most important TAG Heuer (i.e. post 1985) ever released.
Try and imagine today’s range not only without the …

Given all the celebrations and new products launched in 2010 for TAG Heuer’s 150th anniversary, you could be forgiven for thinking that 2011 will be a relatively quiet year. The good news for the fans is that in the next month or so, we’ll see the first of the 2011 watches, the highlight being the new Carrera Mikrograph. While the details of the watch are still under wraps, Calibre 11 can show you today a sneak preview of the new watch and give a few hints on this exciting new …

Congratulations to TAG Heuer for winning the 2010 La Petite Aiguille award (“the small hand” for watches retailing for less than CHF5,000) at the “Watch Oscars”- the prestigious Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.
The award was announced just hours ago. So, while the European watch media spend the evening celebrating, those of us who have just had breakfast in the Southern hemisphere can bring  you the news of the win….even if Champagne sounds like a better way to mark the occasion than Cornflakes.
This is a great coup for TAG Heuer and …

TAG Heuer have made a second round of changes to the Carrera Calibre 1887. The model has been available in some markets for the last few months, but ahead of the launch rolling out globally, further detailed updates have been made to the design of the watch. The changes only impact the dial- the case, pushers, hands and movement are unchanged.
The Carrera 1887 prototype was first displayed in March at the Basel show and was followed by an updated version in May (a change some foolish observers called the “Final …