TAG Heuer Celebrates 55 Many years of the Heuer Carrera

TAG Heuer Celebrates 55 Many years of the Heuer Carrera

TAG Heuer Celebrates 55 Many years of the Heuer Carrera

How Jack Heuer Launched his First Motorsport Chronograph in 1963

Its name alone conjures visions of racecars and rallies: the Heuer Carrera is much more thoroughly connected with auto racing than every other watch. This legendary chronograph celebrates its 55th birthday. We tell its story - and also the tales from the heroes and triumphs, feelings and dramas that supported this chronograph around the world’s racetracks.

The 1960s - The Way It All Started

TAG Heuer Celebrates 55 Many years of the Heuer Carrera

The Heuer Carrera’s story begins in 1963 and therefore within an era inspired by belief in technological and global progress. A lot of it on his diploma being produced engineering in the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) had scarcely dried when 26-year-old Jack William Heuer became a member of his family’s business in 1958. Heuer had already traveled extensively, familiarized themself using the American market and enlarged their sphere of activity. He soon started developing his vision for future years from the Heuer business. Lengthy a significant name over time measurement for sporting occasions, the firm built a few of the world’s finest stopwatches, time-calculating equipment and chronographs. Timepieces from Erectile dysfunction. Heuer & Cie were deployed at ski and automobile races, as well as stored time in the Olympics. Jack Heuer was very happy to see that almost all the participants within the Monte Carlo rally trusted Heuer’s dashboard chronographs. He made the decision to create this his business’ future. His lengthy-established company would focus on what it did best: namely, making chronographs, stopwatches and cockpit instruments. Heuer further reinforced its market dominance if you take over its competitor Leonidas in 1964.

The way the Carrera Took Its Name

Before that, Jack Heuer would write another type of history using the premiere from the first thoroughbred motorsport watch. Made to attract racecar motorists, the Autavia was the very first chronograph that Jack Heuer developed. It debuted in 1962 and, as implied by its name (a hybrid of “auto” and “aviation”), this model also focused on jet pilots, who could preset its rotatable twelve-hour ring and therefore also browse the amount of time in again zone. In addition, the model continued to be water tight to some depth of 100 meters, therefore it seemed to be interesting for divers. The very first watch exclusively for auto racing was the Carrera.

TAG Heuer Celebrates 55 Many years of the Heuer Carrera

A car race was the godfather at its birth. Jack Heuer visited Sebring, Florida in 1962 for that twelve-hour race, where - pointless to state - Heuer time-calculating equipment was deployed. In the biography The Occasions of My Existence, that is really worth studying, the honorary chairman recalls the casually elegant audience that collected with this event: professional racecar motorists, automobile aficionados and lots of unmistakably wealthy spectators. “Important gentlemen amateurs were present too, for instance, Augie Pabst from Pabst Brewery.”

The scales all of a sudden fell from his eyes and that he recognized that “motorsport enthusiasts were an all natural target group for Heuer, for both our watch chronographs as well as for our rally timepieces.”

Two Mexican siblings, the Ferrari motorists Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez, were one of the most colorful personalities around the racing scene. It had been within their surroundings that Jack Heuer first learned about the Carrera Panamericana rally, a road race that the Mexican government had initiated in 1950 to market the Pan-American Highway.

The world’s best groups of motorists competed with each other along this 3,000-kilometer stretch of roadway, which extends from southern Mexico towards the US border. However the Carrera Panamericana am affected by accidents the race was stopped in 1954.

Eight years intervened before its myth was elevated by means of a chronograph. Jack Heuer made the decision to mention his next watch following the legendary rally because “Carrera” not just sounded sexy, but additionally had many meanings that suit the Heuer brand: “Road, race, course, career - many of these are unmistakably Heuer territory,” Jack Heuer enthusiastically declared. In Europe, he guaranteed the legal legal rights to some name that will ultimately be a myth on its own: “Heuer Carrera.”

The Icon

TAG Heuer Celebrates 55 Many years of the Heuer Carrera

The look alone was determined to set new standards. The timepiece world had not seen a dial as modern, as tidily understandable so that as readily legible because the face from the Carrera. Jack Heuer, who had been accountable for the model’s design, trusted minimalism to do this clearness. “We eliminated all inessential extra subdivisions, which led to an entirely obvious, neat and stylistically pure dial.”

A brand new technical invention motivated him to get pregnant a concept that nobody had ever imagined before. The innovation was the inside tension ring, which ensured good watertightness by continuing to keep the Plexiglas very firmly pressed from the wall from the situation. Jack Heuer had the fifths-of-a-second scale printed inside bevel of the tension ring, thus eliminating clutter around the dial and concurrently making the timepiece look bigger because of the elevated flange across the face’s periphery.

Finally, the design and style that Jack Heuer created for that Heuer Carrera also expressed his popularity of modern design. He loved furniture by Le Corbusier and Charles Eames. He loved Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture. And that he properly anticipated the boom wide travel would further strengthen the popularity toward straightforward design.

Particularly the early puristic Carrera chronographs using their twin and triple subdials rank one of the most handsome watches ever built. Customers’ subsequent demands for any tachymeter scale were granted, which made the dial a little bit more crowded. However the tachymeter was soon repositioned to the inner tension ring and also the fifth-of-a-second scale retreated to the dial.

The Carrera’s first collection had been an international success. Through the mid 1960s, the catalogue already incorporated the Carrera 12, Carrera 45, Carrera Tachy, Carrera Deci and Carrera Black models. A global premiere adopted within the mid 1970s using the debut from the first chronograph hosting an electronic date visible on a printed ring.

TAG Heuer Celebrates 55 Many years of the Heuer Carrera

The first Heuer Carreras needed manual winding. A computerized caliber for chronographs wasn't yet available, so Jack Heuer made the decision to build up one. To invest in the always enormous investment, he became a member of forces with appropriate competitors for example Willy Breitling, in addition to Hendes Kocher, the technical director of Buren Watch S.A. and Dubois-Dépraz S.A. The Hamilton manufacturer became a member of this trio later. The disclosing ensued concurrently in Geneva and New You are able to in 1969, once the illustrious team premiered Calibre 11, the world’s first automatic chronograph movement with microrotor. This pioneering achievement led the way toward a vibrant future for Heuer’s chronographs - first of all the Carrera - for everyday use and motorsport.