Gurneygraph is back from a month’s rustication, having promised in the standard form of disgraced politicians and ousted CEOs, to reflect on his errors and spend more time with his family. I can’t pretend there wasn’t broadband, but there was quite a lot of this:
Panamerican Vision
Back in the watch world, I’ve been waiting for the embargo to expire on TAG Heuer’s new Carrera Skipper, a version of what I think is one the year’s best watches.
60 years on from its design, the Carrera has become one of those handful of watches that don’t need the maker’s name attached for anyone remotely into watches to call it to mind. Less universally lauded than the Cosmograph (also from the same year) perhaps, but the Carrera is possibly more deserving of its fame and certainly has a more interesting back story.
Back then, Heuer and Rolex were head-to-head competitors, Heuer had the name and reputation when it came to sports timing generally and motor-racing in particular, while Rolex’s stock in trade was as makers of rugged, simple, water-resistant watches. For Rolex, the launch of a new chronograph was as much about keeping up with the likes of Heuer and Omega, though the general perception being that few Rolex customers would pay the premium for such a rarely used function. At first, the doubters were right, disappointing early sales only picked up when Rolex added a tachymeter to the bezel and introduced the Daytona name.
By contrast, Heuer’s Carrera was the company’s first ‘named’ watch (also after an American race) and was the natural consequence of Heuer’s strong reputation in sports timing and Jack Heuer’s hard work building the brand in the US. Based on the same mechanics as the Rolex, with a simpler design and with a stronger brand, it was hardly surprising that the Heuer was a more immediate success, and any reasonable observer would have thought the Heuer was the surer bet for the future.
So how come the wrong Daytona can make £250,000 or more at auction while even a perfect early Carrera will leave you change from £20,000 (though this Skipper went for £57,420 at Fellows in 2020)? There’s little intrinsically to separate the watches, but the subsequent history of the two companies couldn’t be more different. Where Heuer only just survived (adding the TAG along the way to becoming part of LVMH), Rolex quietly grew and grew and grew.
At an event to mark the 50th anniversary, TAG Heuer arranged a talk putting forward the idea that 1963 was the year that modern culture finally shook off post-war shadow and that the Carrera was an emblem of that change. It was the year of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the 911, the pill, touch-tone telephones, Dr. Strangelove and Martin Luther King, all phenomena that changed the world radically. The Carrera isn’t quite that important, even in watch terms, but it did reflect the background mood, all the more so as Jack Heuer was a confirmed devotee of the modernism of Charles Eames and architects such as Eero Saarinen and Oscar Niemeyer whose designs were hitting the mainstream.
How much of all that is in the end result, the watch itself? Like the Cosmograph, Carrera owes much to the particular methods and restrictions of the time – both cases and dials would be produced by external suppliers who would push for designs that could use existing tooling and both used Valjoux ébauches. These were watches designed to be profitable to make after all.
The difference Heuer (and Rolex) could introduce was in the dial design, which was dominated by a noticeably stripped-down aesthetic emphasising clear delivery of the basic information – the minute track on the Carrera was moved to an interior flange at the edge of the dial and did away with the tachymeter, creating a much more open, simpler dial compared to, for example, Omega’s Speedmaster from 1957. It’s this deliberate, spare, modernism sets the Carrera apart.
This year sees both a ‘purists’ 60th anniversary Carrera (CBK221H.FC8317 – even model numbers are getting unwieldy these days) that looks back to what many, including Jonathan Scatchard of Vintage Heuer think of the best of the original designs, the 2447SN (Panda) that was released in 1968. There are differences – slightly heavier hour markers, longer chrono buttons, a bigger (39mm against 36mm) case and a more detailed set of sub dials, which have a flange and radial engraving – but the anniversary watch feels true to the original, much more so than most previous Carrera revivals.
Right from the start, Heuer’s stockists requested special editions, including this beautifully simple Yachting version of the 2447 that went for just over CHF40,000 at Sotheby’s Spring sale in Geneva, and the Skipper, now AKA the Skiperrera (how I hate matey nicknames for watches), made to celebrate the 1968 America’s Cup, which added a surprisingly bold colour palette that has just a touch of Biba/Mary Quant about it.
This was the basis for an earlier re-issue (which uses the same case and ‘glass-box’) that came out in 2018 thanks to a Hodinkee collaboration. Their version was an instant sell-out and there’s healthy demand in the secondary market (see this one at Vintage Heuer), though I feel the prominent date window on the Hodinkee edition is a strange choice, particularly as collectors always hate date windows, though I’ve always liked the single chrono counter arrangement of watches such as the Easy Rider – there’s even a Skipper version under the Leonidas brand name (‘LeSkipperider’?)
Jack Heuer always said he preferred the newer versions to re-issues and while I’ve not always agreed, I’m right with him for the update Carrera that was launched at Watches & Wonders this spring. It’s got the simplicity of the original but takes into account the increased precision of current watchmaking – the curved flange and details such as the more 3D hands, as well as the contrast red tips on the Skipper model make for a watch that’s contemporary rather than pastiche and the new ‘glass-box’ is a marked improvement on those used in the re-issues.
The Carrera is unlikely to match the Daytona for status or resale value growth any time soon, but I think in terms of pure design, the Carrera comes out on top.
Country Pursuits
It wasn’t all seaside sunsets and fish and chips - in one of the most imaginative ‘outreach’ programmes, Cromer also offers this:
It’s a project run by Cromer Art Space and the National Gallery that places life-size reproductions around the town.
👏👏👏