Baselworld 2010: TAG Heuer 1887 Chronograph

150th Anniversary. TAG released a new watch in its Carrera line, at Baselworld 2010 the TAG Heuer 1887 Chronograph. Watch makes this watch special is the Calibre 1887 movement, in more ways the one. The watch is powered by the in-house Calibre 1887 movement which was announced at the 150th Anniversary of TAG Heuer in December 2009.

This movement cause a small controversy on the internet because TAG Heuer claimed to have been developed it 100% in-house. Some really knowledgeable watch enthusiast noted that it was rather similar to the Seiko TC78 movement. Eventually, TAG Heuer clarified the situation and stated that it had used technology acquired IP rights from Seiko Instruments Inc. to the TC78 which it based the Calibre 1887 movement on. So is it an in-house movement. Yes. The Calibre 1887 movement is completely built by TAG Heuer. Is it 100% developed in-house. No. It uses technology developed by Seiko.


The big winner in all this is Seiko. When a well known Swiss watch company which specializes in chronograph movements acquires rights from Seiko, it must mean that Seiko movements are pretty good. How did TAG Heuer fair in all this? Most of it client base won't really know about all this or even care. TAG a mainstream brand and few of the watches it sells has in-house movements. If this happened to Rolex, it would be a major debacle. For TAG Heuer, it was just a uncomfortable moment.


Back to the watch. The watch has a round 41 mm diameter case and comes with a choice of a black or white dial. Both dials can be had with a bracelet or a black leather strap. The watch is your basic two-button three sub-dial chronograph which has two counters (at the 12 and 6 o'clocks) to measure intervals of time of up to 12 hours. Continous seconds is displayed in a third sub-dial. The date has move to the 6 o'clock position from the 3 o'clock position in the TAG Heuer Carrera Automatic Chronograph. The bezel of the watch has a Tachymetre scale which is used for measuring the speed of a moving object moving through a given distance. All in all, your basic chronograph. Coming in the same size as the older Carrera's, looking too much like the older model and it's in-house movement being less than ground breaking... well, lets just hope it does not cost much more than the older watch.

Heritage. The Carrera line of watches is not named after the Porsche Carrera but after a race called the Carrera Panamericana. After the Mexican section of the Panamerican Highway was completed in 1950, the Mexican government sponsored a nine-stage, five-day race across the country. The race called, Carrera Panamericana, was intended to attract international business into Mexico. The race was ran along the new Panamerican Highway, which crossed Mexico from north to south for a total distance of over 3,000 kilometers. The race was limited to stock sedans with five seats. While many professional drivers joined, many of the competitors were regular Joe's who ran as privateers.

To commemorate this race, TAG Heuer launched a new line of chronograph watches in 1963 called the "Carrera."

About TAG Heuer. TAG Heuer is a Swiss watch company founded by Edouard Heuer who founded a watchmaking company in 1860. TAG Heuer concentrates on chronographs with some less expensive models in each line lacking chronograph features. The lines include Formula One, Aquaracer, Link, Carrera, Monaco, and others.