Il Tag Heuer Carrera It is a sports chronograph appreciated by many enthusiasts around the world. Ever since his name was Heuer Carrera, this watch combines legibility, sporty aesthetics and elegance. Today, in its current edition, it is available in numerous versions.
Let's see together the history and secrets of this watch.
Tag Heuer Carrera: the origins
In 1962, Jack heuer, owner of the watch company of the same name, decided to design and produce a watch suitable for timing car races, a sport of great interest to the public at the time: This year He himself is also an enthusiast and a pilot.
This year chooses to give this watch his name Career, in honor of a Mexican car race known to fans of the time also because of its danger: the Panamericana Carrera, a cross-border race in Mexico on open roads. These are the years, the Sixties, in which theOmega Speedmaster and Rolex Daytona, both watches with a large following also thanks to their association with the world of racing.
The first chronographs Heuer Carrera they are all equipped with hand-wound Valjoux movements. A feature, this, which combined with the clearly legible dial - one of the priorities of This year when he commissioned this watch - allows theHeuer Carrera to be rather proportionate in the thickness-diameter ratio, although the latter amounts to only 36 millimetres, a usual value for the time but relatively compact in our modern eyes.
In 1969, as we have seen in this article, This year It has one of the first automatic chronograph movements in the world. The company certainly couldn't avoid mounting its flagship movement on one of its most successful models. However, the new caliber is thicker than the previous manually wound one, so one is forced to divide larger cases to accommodate it. Luckily for This year, the watchmaking fashion of the Seventies is oriented towards styles far from the classicist minimalism of the Sixties: hence the appearance of more massive, taller cases with non-traditional shapes, ideal for housing larger movements.
A copy of Heuer Carrera seventies. Note the winding crown at 9 o'clock, a technical choice in reality, but which is used as a promotional message: it in fact indicates that this chronograph does not need a winding crown in a conventional position, because it winds up autonomously, using the movement of the wrist
The transition years
Just when theHeuer Carrera reached its golden age, at the beginning of the Seventies, the Quartz Crisis broke out. Many maison they must close or downsize their operations. Also This year suffered from the decline in sales affecting the entire mechanical watch sector: production of the Carrera ceased in 1984.
The brand This year It underwent changes of ownership and came into the hands of the group in 1985 TAG – Techniques d'Avant Garde -. The company's watches still bear the brand today TAG Heuer due to this acquisition. The new ownership decided, in 1996, to bring the Carrera back into production, this time with ETA movements. The new range was therefore born in 1996 Tag Heuer Carrera, initially characterized by stylistic features linked to the first series and, starting from 2005, declined in numerous versions.
The TAG Heuer Carrera today
Today the range Tag Heuer Carrera it is extremely broad and satisfies all tastes, from those who want an elegant chronograph that recalls the past to those who appreciate aesthetic innovation and modern trends. The movements are of ETA origin, a guarantee of robustness and reliability. There's a Tag Heuer Carrera for all tastes, discover yours!
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