TAG Heuer

rdenney
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The Heuer 1964 Carrera Re-Edition CS3110

Earlier last year, the movie channels were running Rush, a movie about the chase for the Formula 1 World Championship in 1976. During that movie, the Heuer logo was plastered all over the Ferrari team, as a result of Jack Heuer's famous arrangement with Enzo Ferrari for such brand placement in return for specialized track timing equipment and some free watches. That movie took me back to my own car-racing days, which ran from 1978 to 1983, and when Niki Lauda was one of my heroes.

About the same time the movie was running, Tourneau opened a new store in Pentagon City, and I stopped in for a visit. At first, I wondered if this watch was a vintage 1964 Carrera, but my Heuer lore needed bolstering, so I let it pass.

Then, I found myself reading the late Chuck Maddox's articles on vintage Carreras, including this re-edition. And Rush was showing the next day. That perfect storm loosened the wallet.



The 1964 Carrera Re-Edition is nearly identical to the original, except for the movement used. It's in the same 36mm case, and uses the original Deci 12 dial. The Deci models had the blue decimal-minutes scale between the chapter ring and the rehaut, and the 12 included the third subdial with the 12-hour totalizer. The crystal is acrylic, but faceted rather than being rounded at the corners:



The lug design was new in 1964, and Jack Heuer thought it had the right angularity for a watch celebrating the Carrera Panamerica car race of the early 50's. Like the original, the CS-3110 Re-Edition shown here does not say "Carrera" on the dial. The back cover of some of these does identify it as a reedition, with engraving I think was added after initial production to some watches, perhaps to prevent confusion with vintage collectibles.



The movement is a Lemania 1873, which is identical to the Omega 1861 used in the Speedmaster Professional. This movement is the lever-switched handwind successor to the Omega 321, and the escapement wheel cock's shape traces back to the S27, the 3-hand movement on which the Lemania CH30 was developed. The chronograph train and actuation is identical to that used in the Lemania 1340, which was the basis not only for the Omega 1040, but also the Breguet 582 in the XX, the Ebel 137, and the Ulysse Nardin 150. It is not column-wheel-actuated, but I cannot tell any difference in pusher feel between my many watches with this family of movements and my Zenith El Primero-powered watches.





The pushers are more narrowly spaced than with the Valjoux 72 used in the original Carrera, and that is the only obvious visual distinction. In 1996 when this Re-Edition launched TAG-Heuer's heritage series, the Lemania was the only high-grade hand-wind chronograph available to etablisseurs.



This watch is a worthy addition to any Heuer collection: still quite reasonably priced on the secondary market and I think represents the best of what it means to be a Heuer watch.