Cartier Tank MC: History and Design Evolution

Writing a short history of Cartier is like writing a short history of Time; at least when it comes to 'shaped' wristwatches.  Watches are usually round to match the round movements. Other shapes are classed as 'shaped' watches.

Of course, PuristS will remember that the first series of watches attached to the wrist in series production was by Girard-Perregaux when the Kaiserliche Marine (German Navy) ordered a series of gold cased wristwatches in 1880. It was a pocket watch with attached wire lugs to hold the strap. To protect the mineral crystal, it had a metal "grill" (lattice) attached to the case with a hinge. These were made of gold being the cheapest metal which was salt-water resistant !

Naval officers needed both hands free during gun-firing operations and calculating the point of impact.

CARTIER

Subsequently, Louis Cartier is credited with designing many shaped watches by virtue of having kept his sketch books. When it comes to credit, it is always good to keep your original notes and patents.

In December 1916, Europe was still in the quagmire of the Great War and yet preparations for the Christmas festivities were continuing. Louis Cartier sketched an idea for a watch. In many ways, it was an incomplete drawing because there were no details about the movement, dial, crown or hands. it was just a shape....but what a shape that became the icon for Cartier over 97 years. Consisting of just 4 lines depicting a square with the two sides extended like the handles of a military stretcher. Later, the sides that ran into the watch lugs came to be known as 'brancards'; the French word for 'stretcher'.

There is also the apocryphal story about the cover of the magazine L'Illustration 2nd December 1916 edition that triggered the design cues in Louis Cartier's mind.  Looking at the military tank blueprints, one must admit to some similarity but Cartier's rendition is highly stylised. The fact that Cartier call the long sides 'brancards' rather than 'tracks' convinces me that the armoured vehicles were not the sole source of his inspiration.

The point of this article is to draw attention to a range of Cartier watches that I had not considered, in my blind devotion to the original Tank L.C.  This new range is the Tank MC that somehow slipped under my radar.  I have been banging on about the need for a mechanical movement in a nostalgic Tank LC to no avail.

The new Tank MC watches are really contemporary in size and maintain that 'tank-like' look. If anything, it is probably closer to the tracked armoured artillery pieces, evoking the heft and substance of a 3-dimentional tank. No wonder that Cartier describe it as their most masculine version ever – featuring an almost square-shaped dial. It’s a tribute by Cartier watchmaking to the modern dandy and to elegance, in the perfection of its straight lines, its natural curvature and
the harmony of its geometry.

A self-winding watch with the first movement produced by the Cartier Manufacture, the 1904 MC, with its oscillating weight and beautiful mechanism visible through the sapphire case back.

This variation on the famous Tank rectangle offers a generous time display on a large dial with a wide breadth that creates the illusion of a square. It makes a strongly masculine impression, energised by the addition of small seconds that gives the dial serious watchmaking allure. And it still carries the iconic Tank look with its guilloché dial, striking rail-track and Roman numerals (black on white or white on black). Cartier has developed this perfect style equation in several versions: an all-steel or pink gold case, white or chocolate dial, diamond-set or skeletonised.