WAY201P.FT6178
Harrods / London, 15th September 2021
As I'm sure I said when this came out and I wrote my 'First Impressions' post, the tortoiseshell bezel Aquaracer first emerged at Bazelworld 2019 with a brown/red bezel and a blue dial; back then it was shown on a blue NATO strap and was even given a part number WAY101K.FC8264 but it never actually arrived. But then last year TAG Heuer announced two new tortoiseshell models, one with a brown/red bezel and a black dial and one with a blue bezel/blue dial combo.
The initial renders were promising for both, very promising in fact and they both scored well in last year's end of year C.O.C.O. Council ratings, but then we started to see actual photos and it became clear that they looked a little bit odd. And now having seen them in the flesh I'm afraid that they don't look any better in real life either...
The problem is that the bezel insert (which I believe is made of some sort of resin) just looks horrendously cheap. Like, really bad. It just looks like cheap plastic and certainly not like it belongs on a watch that costs £2250. Maybe if they had somehow cut a thin slice of it and layered the bezel with sapphire crystal or something then it would look better, but as it is... it's just nasty. And cheap. Did I mention 'cheap' already? Cos it looks cheap.
As chips.
On the plus side, the bespoke strap is really nice. It's a pity in a way that it is made to fit the lugs of the Aquaracer because if it was just a regular 20mm wide strap that could fit onto just about anything then I would have been tempted to buy one of the black ones myself. It's rubber, but it gives the impression of alligator leather and feels very nice on the wrist.
Aside from that this is a regular Calibre 5 Aquaracer so you know what you're getting there; a cool looking watch with a less than completely bulletproof movement. But I'm guessing this isn't a watch that anyone is going to buy as their only watch so if you are interested then you probably know that already.
Again I feel bad that I'm criticising TAG Heuer when they are trying to do something different, and this was always going to be a Marmite kind of idea... but for me it really hasn't worked out like I was hoping it would. To be fair I think the brown/red one was slightly the better of the two, but honestly the only place I can see these ending up is Bicester Village at a chunky discount.
:(
On a more positive note, on Monday we have a guest post from Jim Dollares so look out for that!
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAY201P.FT6178
http://tagheuerenthusiast.blogspot.com/2020/07/first-impressions-tag-heuer-aquaracer.html
No comments:
Post a Comment