How TAG Heuer Came to Be the Definitive Maker of Timing Complications

It’s perhaps a nice coincidence that this year marks 40 years of the forming of TAG Heuer, and 30 years since the Carrera collection was revived. Prior to its acquisition by the Techniques d’Avant Garde group, the family-owned watchmaker had become a victim of the Quartz Crisis. As Jack Heuer sold the business off, the Carrera collection he created was also discontinued in 1984. It was only in 1996, as the industry returned to life and collectors clamoured for historic icons, that the brand reissued a run of the first Carrera from 1963. The success of the release led to its full revival. To celebrate this anniversary, the watchmaker debuted its first Carrera watch with a split-seconds or rattrapante chronograph.

The Carrera Split-Seconds Chronograph is a discreet but statement-making watch, with an automatic TH81-01 calibre powering this remarkable timepiece. Rattrapantes are also known as lap-timers, with two separate chronograph seconds wheels and hands that can couple and decouple at the push of a button to measure timing differences of up to 60 seconds. The movement was developed with the Vaucher Manufacture in Fleurier and based on the TH81-00 used in the Monaco Split-seconds Chronograph.

Heuer first began to develop dashboard chronographs for cars and planes in 1911, but it was in 1933 that the Autavia Dashboard Timer made it an essential brand for motor racing or piloting. With a power reserve of eight days, it ensured that users avoided timing errors due to performance. Heuer expanded the use of its stopwatches to other activities with a modular-style stopwatch, the Ring-Master, with interchangeable bezels with customised timing designs. In the mid-20th century, the move towards electronic timing devices led Heuer to introduce the Mikrotimer, capable of measuring 1/1000th of a second. This cemented Heuer’s association with the Formula 1 motorsport and with the Scuderia Ferrari team in particular.

With the revival of the Carrera in 1996, TAG Heuer also revived a second pursuit to realise its chronograph achievements on the wristwatch. In the early noughties, with Jean-Christophe Babin at its helm, the watchmaker made its first foray into high watchmaking via several concept watches such as the Monaco V4 and Carrera Calibre 360. The latter was a mechanical wristwatch powered by the calibre TH360, with two escapements and gear trains for timekeeping and chronograph timing. The latter runs at 50Hz, matching the Mikrograph timer from 1916 on a wristwatch movement. This proof-of-concept design incredibly rested on an ETA 2892-2 base movement with a chronograph module by La Joux-Perret.

In the last decade, TAG Heuer has dedicated its resources towards innovation and strengthening its industrial production. To achieve its goals, they hired the former head of watchmaking at Cartier, Carole Forestier-Kasapi to be the Technical Director of the brand. The renowned watchmaker worked with the Kenissi Manufacture to improve its existing Heuer-01 and -02 calibres, as well as the -02T tourbillon movement. Next, she improved the reliability of the Solargraph movement, before putting her focus towards the split-seconds chronograph, the most challenging complication in mechanical watchmaking.

Chronograph movements experience great forces in operation. The coupling process can cause a jumping effect when engaging, and resetting it to zero after stopping or in a flyback reset requires strong dampening to absorb the force of the resetting hand. Furthermore, in horizontally coupled chronographs, the dip in amplitude of the balance can affect timekeeping precision. In a split-seconds chronograph, the rejoining of the two chronograph sweep seconds hands exerts great force while in operation, and even greater when a reset is activated.