For a very long time I've found myself frustrated by the perceived distinction between Heuer and TAG Heuer, long term readers will perhaps remember some previous posts I've made on the subject, but recently my ire has been stoked once again by watching a couple of videos made by supposed 'watch experts' pontificating on the merits of TAG Heuer vs Heuer. These people may be watch experts, but they know jack about TAG Heuer (and I'm not talking about Jack Heuer!).
The root of the criticism always follows some small variation on a familiar theme, that being that Heuer are great and TAG are awful because: TAG Heuer abandoned all those lovely mechanical Carreras and Monacos and replaced them with crappy quartz Kiriums and Links.
Obviously I'm biased, because my first TAG was an F1 Kirium... but I never thought it was in the least crappy. However, I am willing to concede that some of the 90s watches weren't exactly top drawer. My 4000 is okay, but nothing special and certainly not worth the original list price. So maybe TAG made some less than great watches and over-charged for them, does that warrant the continued bashing and hate? Are TAG the only company who ever made sub-standard watches and charged too much for them, particularly during the 80s and 90s - I very much doubt it!
It's easy to bash a company for making watches like the Kirium, that in the long run didn't stand the test of time. But we should remember that in the 90s watch companies actually made 'forward looking' watches, the whole industry wasn't completely obsessed with regurgitating the same thing endlessly under the guise of 'heritage' and 'tradition', indeed you only have to look at the recent AP debacle with the Code 11:59 to see what happens now when a company attempts to make a 'new' watch: instant vilification via the tedious medium of 'Social Media' who all jump on the bashing bandwagon, with nary a voice to be heard flowing against the tide. Which is why I was super impressed by Roman Sharf's video on this years AP releases and in particular his thoughts on the Code 11:59.
With the last seven years of vintage this and heritage that, the watch industry has painted itself into a huge corner, but on the flipside, one of the few companies that have made a success of a new model is TAG Heuer with the modular Carrera. Funny that. Maybe it's because while TAG haven't always got it right, at least they didn't stop trying? And you have to accept that if you make a 'new' watch, especially a radical design, you will never know if it will work or not long-term, you just have to wait and see. So now that just about everything worth re-issuing has been, and the industry is finally having to think up something new, it will be interesting to see which companies actually have anything new to offer.
So while I can't completely defend TAG's 90s output, we can at least address the complete fiction that the evil 'Techniques d'Avant Garde' company came along and bought Heuer, suffixed the name and in the process chucked out all the lovely Carreras and Monacos in favour of plastic quartz watches. Well, I'm sure in hindsight they might agree that changing that name was a bad move (indeed Jean Claude Biver said exactly that in an interview a couple of years ago), not least because it handed the haters an absolute gift of a stick to beat the brand with (Heuer - Good / TAG Heuer - Bad, simple right!). But as for TAG being responsible for the downturn in the company's range, well... that's just not correct.
The truth is that when TAG took over, the watches in the range were the 1000, 2000 and 3000 series, the Executive, Titanium and the Golden Hours watches. There was admittedly the Super Professional and the Autavia range of automatic chronographs, but Monacos and Carreras there were not, because Heuer had already discontinued them. And we have to assume there was a good reason for that, if they had still been good sellers then why on Earth would they have been dropped?
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This is the sort of watches that Heuer were making in their final days, and I don't see anyone clamouring for a re-issue of these 'beauties'. This is not a Heuer-bash, the watch industry was in crisis in the early 80s, quartz was destroying the mechanical timepiece and taste was questionable all round. But it's simply wrong to suggest that TAG came along and 'ruined' the company, when in actual fact for the first two years of ownership they didn't do anything much other than put the new logo onto watches that already existed.
But for the 'watch experts' on You Tube, it's far easier to parrot the nonsense that Heuer = good, TAG Heuer = bad, irrespective of the facts, and in the process pander to the preconceived ideas of the majority of their audience. Because let's be honest, it's far easier to do that than to stick your head above the parapet and say 'actually, that's not true'.
After all, it was TAG Heuer who resurrected the Carrera, Autavia and Monaco, and it was only relatively recently that they started putting Heuer back on the dial. Personally I think that was a mistake as it only added to the Heuer = good, TAG Heuer = bad misconception, but then again from a marketing point of view I can see the reasoning.
Again, this is not meant as a Heuer bash, I think the reality is that both TAG Heuer and Heuer have made some good watches and some lousy watches, but with such an easy 'break point' it's even harder to get that message across to those who only believe the 'headlines'.
Unfortunately, with TAG's market position, there's always going to be people who want to bash the brand, entry level is a lucrative proposition, but leaves you open to disparaging remarks from people who value the snob value of their own chosen brands. This is a hard cycle to break, and yes maybe TAG Heuer watches are overpriced, but almost everything that comes out of Switzerland is overpriced to some degree. IWC and Hodinkee have just released a very plain collaboration watch that retailed for over £6000, it sold out in a day and nobody seems to be calling out the blatant profiteering, but unfortunately that's just the way the watch community operates.
Still, that's no reason to let lies and disinformation go unchallenged, is it?
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