CV2A1F.BA0796
TAG Heuer Boutique / Bicester Village, 27th July 2018
I remember seeing one of these in Cheshire Oaks a good couple of years ago on a rubber 'tyre-tread' strap and coming awfully close to buying it. According to my post on the 19th of October 2016, it was priced at £2400 and I didn't actually realise that it was possible to get this limited edition Monaco Grand Prix Carrera on a bracelet, so I was more than a little surprised to see it in the Bicester store back in July.
I guess there's been a couple of price rises in the meantime, and bracelets are always more expensive, which adds up to a somewhat generous price hike of £700, but then hindsight is always 20/20. I must admit I've always had a soft spot for the tyre-tread strap (I think it reminds me of an ashtray that we had in our house when I was a kid) and this bracelet does give the watch a whole different feel and aesthetic, but I still like it - it's just a bit more.. classy, I suppose.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if this one has sold since I tried it on, it's a very nice looking watch with just the right amount of red highlighting that so many of us find appealing. At 43mm it might be a little large for some but it fitted my 7.3/4" wrist perfectly, my only real gripe is that I personally don't like those thick edges on the sub-dials too much - so perhaps it's as well I wasn't seduced by the strap and the price!
The watch itself is limited to 3000 pieces, which seems an awful lot for one specific race. No indication how many are on bracelets and how many are on the rubber, but there's definitely more on straps about, so I'd assume maybe a 2/1 split? The bracelet is quite stylish, with small polished inserts breaking up the mostly brushed finish on the 5 piece design.
Overall I still think I'd prefer this one on a rubber strap, even though generally speaking I've definitely moved towards bracelets over the past couple of years. Long time readers will remember my obsession with rubber straps in the early days of the blog, but my collection now has only a few and one of those I view as temporary - as I'm sure to put my Calibre S Aquarace back on the bracelet eventually.
The other thing that I'm not crazy about actually, is that when you have a Calibre 16 with a day date function, they kind of run out of room to place the TAG logo and ends up getting shunted up near the '2' position. I can see there really isn't anywhere else left to put it, but it's not really ideal and it breaks up the symmetry of the dial somewhat.
Still, if you can live with that (and the chunky sub-dials, which I know is probably just me being finicky) then this is a very nice watch and presumably you could always order the rubber strap for the summer months...?
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