TAG Heuer’s Monaco case has always been a palette for
technically unusual movements—and sporty dials.
In 2009, exactly four decades after its debut, the TAG Heuer Monaco again made the square case hip. That year at BaselWorld the chronograph maker debuted a 1,000-piece limited edition Monaco Caliber 11 that expertly mimicked the famed 1969 original, including the left-side winding crown and the same Heuer logo the company had used for its first dozen pre-TAG decades.
And while TAG Heuer had been making new Monacos since 1999, that 2009 vintage-tinged special edition sold quickly, echoing a Monaco lust that, while ebbing in the 1980s and early 1990s, is widely evident to this day among a wide swath of collectors. The relatively small number of Heuer Monacos produced between 1969 and 1975 (about 6,000) makes their huge impact on the brand’s history all the more impressive.
Of course, that moderate level of production only heightens their demand on the secondary market today.
New & Old
The newest TAG Heuer Monacos, one of which is seen on the cover of this issue, continue to fan the flames of adoration for all sporty Monaco cases and their technically advanced calibers.
Heuer in 1969 designed the square Monaco case specifically to house Caliber 11, the world’s first widely distributed modular automatic chronograph watch movement, though the movement and its iterations were also placed into existing Heuer Carrera and Heuer Autavia cases.
Monaco was a favorite among racecar drivers of the 1970s. Famed racer Jo Siffert wore Heuer chronographs and was the company’s first ambassador thanks to the forward-thinking Jack Heuer, the fourth generation Heuer who pioneered the art of product placement in the 1960s and who just retired from the company.
So it might seem difficult today to understand how the popular Heuer Monaco once almost faded from view.
Yet it almost did. Echoing the experience of many Swiss mechanical chronographs of the 1970s and 1980s, original Heuer Monaco production stopped in 1975 amid quartz competition, a skyrocketing Swiss franc, and somewhat disappointing sales, though the company continued to sell the remaining pre-1975 watches into the early 1980s.
Auction Action
But today those early models are the focus of much auction activity, most recently energized by the late-2010 Bonhams auction of the wide-ranging Arno Haslinger Heuer collection, where a 1975 PVD black Monaco fetched the single highest price among all the company’s vintage favorites, hammering for nearly $75,000.
More recently, it was a singular blue-dialed Heuer Chronomatic Monaco, as worn by Steve McQueen during the filming of the 1971 film “Le Mans,” that attracted outsized bids, reaching an unprecedented $650,000 hammer price at a Christie’s auction in July 2012.
Innovative Calibers
Today TAG Heuer’s Monaco collection retains its place as a palette for technically unusual movements while at the same time offering eye candy for admirers of highly visible, large-cased sports watches.
As the 1969 Heuer Monaco debut famously displayed, square cases really could be made water resistant, and with that technical hurdle behind it, Heuer and later TAG Heuer began to place many of its technically advanced calibers into the spacious steel case. Those breakthrough models included the Monaco Sixty-Nine Concept watch in 2003, the Monaco V4 belt-drive piece a year later, the Monaco Caliber 360 LS (Linear Second) in 2006 and the Monaco Twenty Four Concept Chronograph three years later.
Latest Monacos
Just this past year TAG Heuer released several new sporty and technically impressive Monacos.
As seen on our cover this month, the Monaco Calibre 12 Chronograph Automobile Club de Monaco echoes the profile of many collectible vintage Monaco models. And as the first all-black Monaco since 1974, it’s likely to turn heads.
This model stems from the 2011 agreement between TAG Heuer and the Automobile Club de Monaco to make the Swiss brand the ACM’s Official watch and chronograph (and eyewear) partner of the Grand Prix of Monaco. Recall that TAG Heuer has sponsored more first-place Monaco drivers than any other brand, including winning drivers such as Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Häkkinen, David Coulthard, Kimi Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
Indeed, Heuer’s role as the official timekeeper of Formula 1 in the 1970s was much in evidence this past fall as Heuer watches and logos accurately punctuated the movie “Rush” as it dramatically recalled the 1976 rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt for that year’s F1 championship. The TAG Heuer museum provided ten watches and pocket watches and technical guidance to the filmmakers.
TAG Heuer uses F1-grade black titanium carbide for the case on this new 39mm ACM Monaco. Its dial features white luminescent markers on the facetted minute and hour hands. The all-black dial is highlighted by the word Monaco above the TAG Heuer logo at 12, and a bit of orange can be seen on the tip of the chronograph second hand. This matches the lining of the perforated black leather strap. On the back you’ll find the logo of the ACM on a smoked sapphire crystal caseback.
Also new is the Monaco Twenty Four Calibre 36 Chronograph, with a 40.5mm case and a black or blue dial. Collectors might recall the first Monaco Twenty-Four several years ago that featured the first Advanced Dynamic Absorber System that protects the movement by suspending it inside the case with four shock-absorbing arms.
The shock absorbers are back in this new model, also wholly visible through the case. These collect vibrations and direct them away from the movement and into the composite filter, which absorbs and dissipates their energy. This construction, its tubular design and the desire for shock-protected components are inspired as much by Formula One racecar technology as by the need to protect the COSC-certified 5 Hertz (36,000 vph) Caliber 36 inside.
The large number 24 at 12 o’clock is a nod to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the most famous endurance race in the world.
New Facility, New Caliber
Last fall, TAG Heuer announced the completion of two manufacturing milestones. The company opened a wholly new movement making facility in Chevenez where it is now making its newest in-house chronograph movement, Caliber 1969.
The new highly automated facility is also the new home of the Calibre 1887, the in-house movement that commenced manufacture in 2010 at TAG Heuer headquarters in La Chaux-de-Fonds, but has now been consolidated to the Chevenez facility.
According to TAG Heuer, the addition of the Chevenez facility will allow the brand to produce 50,000 Swiss chronograph movements, more than any other Swiss watch brand. The company plans to double that figure by 2016. Caliber 1969 production is slated to reach 5,000 by the end of 2014.
This new caliber features an integrated chronograph movement with a vertical-clutch system, which differs from the oscillating pinion system used in Calibre 1887. This is more in line with what many high-end chronograph makers utilize in their integrated chronograph calibers.
Caliber 1969 features an impressive seventy-hour power reserve. As chronographs go, this is a thin movement (6.5mm) and it includes 200 Swiss-made components including Swiss hairsprings (made nearby at the Sandoz-owned Atolkapa) with a four-spoke balance that is KIF auto-shock adjusted. All the Caliber 1969 bridges, plates and ébauches are being made at Chevenez.
The dial’s counter layout, like the original Calibre 11, is classic tri-compax-style, with a central chronograph hand, chronograph minutes at 3 o’clock, chronograph hour at 9 o’clock and small second at 6 o’clock. This again differs from the Caliber 1887, which has registers at the 12, 3 and 9 o’clock positions.
The Caliber 1969 also features a date window at 9 o’clock. The decoration offers Côte de Genève on the plates and snailing on the black tungsten oscillating weight and the minute and automatic bridges, which are nickel-plated and angle polished, with shiny beveled edges.
It’s possible that that this new chronograph caliber, TAG Heuer’s latest technical achievement, might find its way into a Monaco case sometime soon. However, early word from the company points to a Carrera case as the new caliber’s first home.
