SPOTLIGHT ON: 6000 Series McLaren F1 Quartz

WH5214.FC6031

In the early 90's McLaren launched the ultimate supercar, the revolutionary 'F1'. Built without engineering or financial compromise, the finished car was the fastest road car available (top speed somewhere between 230-245mph depending on who you believe!) and cost upwards of £500,000. The car was produced in very small numbers, in total there were 106 of which only 64 were road cars (the others being prototypes and racing versions).

At the time, TAG Heuer were a sponsor of McLaren Formula One and the boss of McLaren (Ron Dennis) was also a shareholder in TAG Heuer, so it made sense for TAG to manufacture a special 'personalized' watch, given to the owners of the supercar (along with a set of specially made golfclubs).

However, the watch at the top of this page is not this watch. For some reason, possibly lack of demand for the brilliant but hugely expensive McLaren F1, TAG made and issued (but seemingly did not sell) some 'non-personalized' pieces of the same watch. In the picture below you can see the 'owners' watch which has printed on the dial the chassis number of the car to which it belongs, obviously this is missing on the non-owner watches. Actually, not only that but the 'McLaren Cars' text is replaced by 'Chronometer - Officially Certified'.

Additionally, if this photo below is correct there is no mention of McLaren on the back plate of the watch either, meaning the only reference left to the McLaren F1 is the 'F1 V12' text on the bottom edge of the front of the case.

Seemingly none of the car owners have decided to sell their personalized watches, possibly because if you have a car that is now worth several million pounds, then selling a watch for a couple of thousand pounds doesn't really interest you, especially as I suppose it might fetch less than it might devalue the car not having it...? 

A few non-owner watches have been sold, I've found one that sold on eBay for £1176 in 2011, which doesn't seem that much really considering it was unworn and is one of the rarest TAG Heuers out there. Perhaps the somewhat dated styling and not terribly attractive strap worked against it? Personally I'm not that taken with this watch, or the 6000 series in general, that case is very ostentatious and just seems at odds with what a TAG Heuer ought really to be.