Tag Heuer is most famous for its chronographs: a watch genre it has excelled in so comprehensively that at one point it was producing them for many of its storied Swiss rivals, including Rolex. Its founder, Édouard Heuer, was an inventor and innovator and something of a maverick, setting up his 19th century watchmaking business in the village of St-Imier and becoming a central part of the history of watchmaking.
Heuer took out his first chronograph patent in 1882 and five years later came up with the oscillating pinion, the part that allows chronographs to be stopped and started, which is still used today. The company went on to design chronographs for planes, cars and boats. During the Thirties its innovations in dashboard chronographs led to the Autavia (a portmanteau of ‘automobile’ and ‘aviation’), which became one of its key lines. It also came up with the first wrist chronograph in 1914 and, soon after, began making stopwatches.
Heuer timepieces were used for three Olympics during the Twenties, so beginning an association with sports that stands to this day. By the Seventies, however, the company was beginning to falter and a private holding company, Tag (Techniques d’Avant-Garde), purchased a majority stake. The resulting business, now known as Tag Heuer (which is pronounced "tag hoy-yur", BTW), was in turn acquired by the LVMH luxury conglomerate in 1999, for nearly half a billion pounds.
The association with sports and timing continues to be a profitable one, with numerous high-profile sponsorships including, at one time or another, Manchester United, the French Professional Football League, Porsche’s Formula E Electric Racing Team, the Ferrari F1 team and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing. Accordingly, Tag Heuer has become synonymous with watches with a sturdy, sporty aesthetic – as borne out by the advertising slogan ‘Don’t Crack Under Pressure’ – perhaps most famously embodied in its Monaco, the square watch made famous by the film Le Mans, and also its Aquaracer and Formula 1 lines.
Most recently it has branched out into smartwatches. Its Connected line of modular watches come with a host of interchangeable features: allowing you to customise the watch faces via the touchscreen interface, as well as swap the straps, lugs, even the watch head itself.
It's innovation like this that keeps Tag Heuer in its pole position as one of the big names in quality, precision watchmaking. Édouard Heuer's maverick vision is alive and well in the 21st century.
Though Porsche and Tag Heuer have shared the name ‘Carrera’ for decades, the two motorsport icons didn’t get round to collaborating until 2021. Now, on the car’s 50th birthday, the two have created on a watch honouring the mighty 911 Carrera RS 2.7 (named for its 2.7-litre engine). Riffing on its colour palate, two models are available: a blue version in steel and a red version in rose gold, the first limited to 500, the second to 250. Attention to detail is impressive: the ‘Carrera’ font is rendered in the same proportions on both watch and car, while that white dial isn’t actually white – it’s ‘competition white’, a specific shade Porsche owns.
The Carrera models make up a very rich tapestry indeed. The bold lines and motorsport lineage are still there, but the alligator leather strap, day-date display and black and gold face give this a much more late night vibe – the sort of thing you'd wear having taken the chequered flag, done the champagne spray, showered off and headed out to celebrate rather than one for on the grid itself. Inside the calibre 5 automatic movement has a 38-hour power reserve.
While most luxury Swiss companies held back in the face of the smartwatch boom, believing cogs and mainsprings would always trump Bluetooth and ECG sensors, Tag Heuer went all in. Its first “connected” model was released the same year as the first Apple Watch. Seven years on, its latest itineration, Calibre E4, is arguably the only serious Apple alternative. Battery life has been boosted by a third, a new workout function joins cycling, swimming and golf tracking with lessons from 3D motion-captured PTs, a feature that feels genuinely futuristic. You can toggle between digital and ‘real’ (ie: analogue) faces, too.
Unsurprisingly for a brand with such a rich motorsport heritage, the Formula 1 line has been a staple since the 1980s. Tag Heuer recently introduced a trio of bright racing-centric colourways into its offering: green, yellow and red. The new chronographs come in 43mm cases with PVD-steel tachymeter bezels and pushers at 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock. All come on matching rubber straps, with the motif of a chequered flag on their casebacks.
There’s been a race to the bottom for seriously deep, deep-diving dive watches (see also: Omega’s Ultra Deep, able to withstand depths of 6,000 meters). Since the world-record scuba dive stands at just 332.35 meters, the whole thing is faintly ridiculous – but maybe that’s the point. Most people don’t buy a Ferrari to drive it at 211mph. This 1,000 meter-diver is certainly handsome – black and orange details, sunray-brushed dial and a custom backlit case. It also comes with something not on the official specs – serious bragging rights.
If any watch brand has earned the right to call product line "Formula 1", it's Tag Heuer. It has sponsored McLaren, Ferrari and Williams over the years, while its motorsport associations date back to 1968, when Jack Heuer signed a sponsorship deal with Swiss legend Jo "Seppi" Siffert. It is still the official timekeeper of the Monaco Grand Prix and the Automobile Club de Monaco. This new Red Bull Racing special edition chrono makes the connection explicit, deploying all the colours and graphic codes of the F1 team.
The newest iteration of the Aquaracer come with a number of spot-the-difference design tweaks that mark it out from its predecessors (the date window moves from 3 to 6 o’clock!). It’s also slimmer, with a better fit. These subtle improvements make it the nicest-looking dive watch in the Tag Heuer catalogue. Available in multiple colours, we like this all-blue with the sun-ray brushed dial – appropriate for a sporty dive watch.
The iconic square-faced model as worn by Steve McQueen in Le Mans – and by Steve McQueen in Tag Heuer’s promotional material today. Available here in a black-on-stainless-steel-on-black colourway for something that looks a little more like a dress watch, while retaining some essential "Steve McQueen" DNA.
The UK’s leading watch customising company, Bamford Watch Department, teamed up with Tag Heuer in 2020 for this eye-catching Aquaracer. With its titanium case and bright orange details it harked back to classic sports models from the Sixties and Seventies – though the spec was entirely 21st century, of course. Boss George Bamford said they’d made “the ultimate tool watch”. He might have been right.
Another motorsport icon, this one inspired by the Carrera Panmericana, the Mexican/US border-to-border rally that ran for five years from 1951, often called The Most Dangerous Race in The World (at least 27 people died, including spectators, before it was shut down). It comes with a 42-hour power reserve and, as the name suggests, Tag Heuer’s leading Calibre 16 automatic movement.
The Calibre E is the current flagship Tag Heuer smartwatch, but this earlier Modular model has much to recommend it, featuring accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, heart rate monitor, Bluetooth, wi-fi and a whole suite of connected tech suitable for Android devices.
Tag Heuer excels at motorsport watches. But that’s not to say it can’t turn its hand to pilot’s watches, too. Its Autavia line has been around since 1933 and takes its name from a dashboard stopwatch engineered by the brand to meet the toughest ‘AUTomotive’ and ‘AVIAtion’ requirements. This anniversary model features an unusual flyback function, allowing you to rest the chronograph hand at the push of a button.
Another handsomely designed anniversary model. The pops of colour – blue and red on the scale, yellow on the subdial, red on the central hand – set off the otherwise minimal design. The case back is engraved with “ONE of 1000” limited edition numbering.
In tribute to the first ever Monaco and its blue dial, Tag Heuer introduced a flurry of special blue touches to the iconic square watch earlier this year. The stand-out detail, though, is the skeletonised dial, which gives a glimpse at the inner workings of one of Tag Heuer’s best-loved styles.
For better or for worse, fitness watches don’t have the best rep. But Tag’s Connected Calibre E4 manages to combine all the bells and whistles you’d expect – a smart interface, wellness and performance features and a whole host of sports tracking capabilities – with an enviable aesthetic. This option comes in matte black Sandblasted titanium, meaning there aren’t many smartwatches on the market that look better.
