2024 is a year full of important anniversaries. One year after the Autavia celebrations, it’s time to honor 60 years of the iconic Carrera.
Fake TAG Heuer presents a limited edition model of 600 pieces at LVMH Watch Week 2023, which is currently being held in Singapore, inspired by one of the collectors’ favorite Carreras.
Today the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph 60th Anniversary chronograph was created to pay homage to the 60 years of the Carrera, one of the watches that wrote the history of sports chronographs created in 1963 by Jack Heuer, who at that time spent his Sundays on the track.
Heuer Carrera: The History
Launched in 1963, the Heuer Carrera is not only Jack Heuer’s favorite watch but also the first timepiece he created entirely, choosing and registering his name as well as designing its aesthetic down to the smallest details.
The Carrera was a chronograph made for professional racing drivers, featuring an easy-to-read minimalist dial, details that made it a legend. Jack created it with the dangerous Carrera Panamerican car race in mind. In Spanish this word means road but also race, journey or career.
In its sixty years of life it has become a star and worn in the 1960s in competition by four-wheel legends such as James Hunt, rather than celebrities such as Mick Jagger in the 1970s and Ryan Gosling today.
The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph 60th Anniversary in detail
To begin the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Carrera, TAG Heuer worked on the reference 2447 released at the end of the 1960s, at the time offered in two versions.
One was the so-called “panda” with a silver dial and two black counters, the other with the same colors on the contrary “reverse panda”. The final part of the code name 2447 SN highlighted the presence of the panda dial with the abbreviation of “Silver” and “Noir”.
The TAG Heuer Carrera 60th Anniversary is therefore a very faithful reproduction of the 2447 SN. The colors chosen for the dial reflect that two-tone combination that made history in vintage chronographs, including the black lines along the central hands and hour markers, the double stops at 12 o’clock and, of course, the black counters with scales, Highly contrasting white numbers and hands.
Vintage air
The 39 mm polished-finish steel case is contained and covered by a “glass box” sapphire crystal which, with its convexity, literally recalls the plexi glass of the past but offers resistance to scratches. The pump pushers, combined with the beige luminescent material and the thin tension ring around the outer edge of the dial, give the 60th Anniversary Carrera an attractive vintage chronograph feel.
The sapphire crystal case back reveals the Heuer 02, the now well-known automatic chronograph caliber from Tag Heuer with its generous 80 hours of power reserve.
This view allows you to see the decorations of the côtes de Genève movement, the column wheel – with the fine solution of the vertical clutch – and the oscillating weight with the Carrera 60th Anniversary engraving.
Carrera 60th Anniversary opinions
The Carrera certainly needs no introduction. Among sports chronographs it is an institution and this first limited edition celebrating its 60 years is impeccable, so much so that many have already not missed it.
Beyond the solemnity of the aesthetics (note the detail of the ancient Heuer logo – without TAG) and the name, it is worth underlining as always the presence of the Heuer caliber 02, a movement certainly made industrially but which has characteristics that they can normally only be found in chronographs that cost at least twice as much.