FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Autavia Calibre 5 'Year of the Rat' Limited Edition

WBE5193.FC8300

The new TAG Heuer Autavia has had rather a rocky start to it's life, being pulled from sale due to problems integrating the new carbon hairspring with the existing Calibre 5 movement and so now it's coming back without said hairspring and with 'Automatic' replacing 'Isograph' on the dial. Judging by the TAG Heuer website it seems that the replacement watches have just come back onto the market alongside this limited edition 'Year of the Rat' model (which is only available in Asia, presumably).

I quite like this backplate for the limited edition, yes it may be a little cheesy, and I wouldn't want it on the dial, but round the back is the best place for having a little fun since only you get to see it on a day to day basis. I still find the Autavia a little confusing, it seems to want to be a 'pilot' watch, but it also seems to want to play the racing card (even without a chronograph) as such it comes off as neither, but then oddly enough it appeals to people like me who don't really like traditional 'pilot' watches.

Clearly, this one features a quick release system on the strap, which I presume is on the regular models as well (it's a long time since I saw them), in this instance I would be taking advantage of that as I don't really care for the strap this one comes on that much; but maybe the pictures don't do it justice? Unfortunately as I'm never likely to see one I'm never likely to find out one way or the other.

Looks like they've gone to a bit of trouble with this box, this is definitely a bit more than your regular TAG Heuer case; not sure if it's wood or plastic... I hope it's wood, and here we see our friend the 'Racing Rat' again.

The main point of departure for this special edition, aside from the colour scheme which isn't available in the usual Autavias, is the Chinese character at the '1' position. It's a bit hard to see it in these pictures, but a quick Google suggests it is the Chinese symbol for 'rat'... (what else would it be?), the same symbol that is shown (a lot more clearly) on the backplate.

No idea how many of these are out there I'm afraid; price is £3325 which is a premium of about £225 over the standard brown/bronze model, but it does look like you are getting a much funkier box for your money and that red/black colour scheme which is exclusive to this model.