Two years ago, TAG Heuer’s biggest news at Baselworld was the long-awaited and hugely popular Autavia’s return to the market after more than 30 years of silence. This year, the brand extends the contemporary Octavia family, so far only including timepieces, into a complete collection, with other pillars of TAG Heuer such as Carrera, Monaco, and links. Here are seven new references to the introduction of all three hand timings with dates, which will introduce new colors and case materials, and feature new technological breakthroughs in their movement.
The vintage replica watch upon which the new models are based, itself based on an early 20th century dashboard timer, was designed by none other than Jack Heuer, scion of the watch manufacturer’s founding family and also the driving force behind other 1960s icons like the Carrera. The rounded case, measuring 42 mm in diameter, incorporates the beveled lugs of the original models from the 1960s, as well as the extra-large winding crown, an element encouraged by historical pilots’ watches that enabled glove-wearing flyboys to use it more easily.
There are five models with stainless steel cases, two with blue dials and bezels; two with black dials and bezels, and one with a gray dial and steel bezel. The blue-combo and black-combo models are available on dark brown or light brown leather straps or steel bracelets with accompanying NATO straps, while the gray-dial model is offered on a brown leather strap. As per watch-world trends of the past few years, the replica TAG Heuer has built the watches so that all of these straps and bracelets are easily interchangeable, without the use of tools, by means of two push-buttons on the underside of the cases, whose casebacks are engraved with renderings of a tire and a propeller, a visual nod the watch’s design heritage.
Also in synch with an increasing trend, the remaining two new Autavia models feature cases made of bronze. Measuring 42 mm in diameter like their steel brethren, the bronze models, whose casebacks are made of titanium, are available with either a smoked green or brown dial, with rotating bezels in either black or brown ceramic, individually.
What’s perhaps most famous about the new Autavia timepieces is their use of a newly developed carbon-composite hairspring in their movement, the COSC chronometer-certified Caliber 5. An innovative in-house creation of fake TAG Heuer’s development team in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which made its debut in January inside the Heuer 02T Tourbillon Nanograph, this hairspring is engineered to be lightweight, low-density, completely antimagnetic, and virtually impervious to both gravity and shocks. Combined with the aluminum alloy balance wheel, this combination gives the self-winding motion an “isographic” that represents the consistency and stability of the regulating device.