The three watches TAG Heuer’s Heritage Director would save if the model’s museum was on hearth

Luke Benedictus

With an illustrious historical past stretching again to 1860, TAG Heuer have made an terrible lot of watches through the years. Consequently, the model’s museum in La Chaux de Fonds options over 3000 fashions which have been launched, both by Heuer or the trendy incarnation of the model. As a part of his position as Heritage Director of TAG Heuer, Nicholas Biebuyck is, after all, intimately conversant in this huge assortment and dotes on them with comprehensible satisfaction. However we needed Nick to play favourites. That’s why we posed this theoretical query: if the TAG Heuer museum was on hearth and he may solely save three watches from the blaze, which timepieces would he decide?

Choose 1: Steve McQueen’s Monaco

“I’d have to choose one of many Steve McQueen Monacos that had been used throughout the filming of Le Mans,” Nick says. “One bought in December 2020 for US$2.2 million.”

Launched in 1969, Heuer’s Monaco was a game-changer. Not solely was it one of many first self-winding chronograph wristwatches, housing Heuer’s legendary Caliber 11, it was additionally the world’s first waterproof square-cased watch. Designed by Jack Heuer, the watch would go on to be chosen by McQueen because the genuine chronograph of alternative for his racing driver character in Le Mans. The piece worn by the actor himself is way too vital to perish within the flames.

Choose 2: Ronnie Peterson’s Carrera

“I’d even have to choose Ronnie Peterson’s Gold Carrera,” Nick admits. “We’re very fortunate to have that within the museum.”

Within the Nineteen Seventies, Peterson was a Swedish racing driver and a two-time runner-up within the Components One World Drivers’ Championship. “Someday round 1975, Jack Heuer gifted Ronnie a stable gold Carrera on the bracelet with an uncommon dial. And on the again it was engraved, ‘Success / Ronnie Peterson from Jack Heuer’.” Nick explains. “It grew to become the watch that Ronnie wore frequently.

In 2016, the chronograph bought for greater than 10 occasions its estimate to attain CCHF225,000 at Phillips’ sale of necessary watches. “The museum was fortunate sufficient to amass it,” Nicholas says.  “In order that’s a really, crucial watch.”

Choose 3: James Garner’s Carrera

The TAG Heuer museum is now ablaze. Flames are leaping increased, licking on the glass show cupboards. Time is operating out! However Nicholas stays ice-cool underneath stress. “The third must be the James Garner Carrera,” he concedes with a tragic sigh, pondering of all of the horological marvels he has simply consigned to ashes.

The story behind this watch was rekindled by the image above of Garner smoking that appeared in a tweet between two classic Heuer nerds. The picture confirmed Garner within the basic TV present The Rockford Recordsdata sporting a black Heuer chronograph reference 3647N. The eagled-eyed fanatics observed the dial included a shock aberration –  an uncommon line of textual content on the backside. However they had been unable to decipher the phrases from the image. That’s when issues received fascinating. Unexpectedly, Garner’s daughter preferred the Tweet and received in contact. She revealed that the extra line of white textual content turned out to be the identify of the actor. “He had a Carrera particularly made for him together with his identify on the dial,” Nick says.

Higher nonetheless for the TAG Heuer model story, Garner was additionally a petrolhead like McQueen. He performed a racing driver in Grand Prix and even owned a racing team that competed at LeMans, Daytona, and Sebring within the late ‘60s.

These are Nick’s picks however because the museum turns into a blazing inferno, when you’ll excuse us, we actually ought to evacuate the premises.