CAR2A1AB.FT6163
When I visited London in January I got my first look at the new Carrera Heuer 01 Aston Martin Special Edition in a cabinet in the TAG Heuer boutique on Oxford Street and, well... I was a bit underwhelmed to say the least. Fast forward to March and I spotted the watch again, this time in a cabinet in the basement of Watches of Switzerland on Regent Street and this time it caught my eye enough for me to ask to try it on.
I'd love to be able to tell you that once I finally got it on my wrist I was blown away and that I can't believe I didn't try it on the first time I had the opportunity, but to be honest it was a little bit meh. I've never been that keen on the solid dial Heuer 01s anyway, and while this isn't a completely solid dial, it has the same look with the sub dials being much more obviously 'separate' than on my own original modular 45mm 'skeleton' Carrera.
When the Aston Martin tie in was announced and the first pictures of the two watches were released I was genuinely excited, particularly for the Formula 1 which looked great with it's acid yellow and black colour scheme, but in the flesh the F1 was massively muted and hugely disappointing. A similar feeling came over me when wrapping this around my wrist, it just lacks the necessary 'wow' factor for me to raise it above the standard models, and considering the price premium you are paying (this one retails for £5250) I can't see it somehow.
I guess a lot will depend on how you feel about the unique features of this particular piece, namely the hexagon dial, the ribbed case and of course the Aston Martin branding on the bezel and the running seconds subdial at the 9 O'clock position (is it me, but it doesn't matter how you type '9 O'clock' it never looks quite right). Speaking of which, I imagine it's been done for 'photogenic' reasons but the pictures give the impression that the large hand is a running seconds which is quite misleading in itself, at least to people unfamiliar with the movement and/or chronographs in general.
Personally, while I applaud the desire to get creative with the case, I don't really care for it too much. Of all the modular Carreras I've seen and tried on I still think they got it right first time with the black PVD coating and the thin red line, but fair play to them, this isn't just another special edition with a badge on the dial. Ah yes, the dial... when I saw the original pictures I thought the hexagon cut out dial looked great, but while I appreciate the idea, the execution is somewhat flawed in my opinion. Not the physical execution obviously, but the design.. it seems a bit all over the place. I think it would have been much better if all the hexagons had been the same, rather than big ones here, little ones here, intermediate ones over there... it just doesn't work for me. I guess it's 'clever', but I don't find it aesthetically pleasing. Also I can't help but think it was a missed opportunity to splash some of that acid yellow behind the hexagon cut-outs, but then again that would rather undermine the impact of the (since released) Nanograph.
On the plus side, the strap is lovely (TAG Heuer have really made some excellent straps for the new Carreras, I haven't found one I haven't liked yet) and while the watch has some unique features, the 'Aston Martin' branding isn't too over the top so it has a certain timelessness to it (says the man who wants an acid yellow background.... I know). The bezel is particularly successful, with the Aston Martin text substituted for the usual 'Tachymetre' and the TAG Heuer shield highlighted in red (complementing the red tip on the chrono second hand) but the position of the TAG Heuer logo on the dial is killing me. I'm no designer, but I want to say the logo should be centred in the middle of where a subdial directly mirroring the running seconds dial should be. Looking at it straight on it just begs to be moved over a couple of millimeters to the right... which, thinking about it, is probably where it was before they moved it!
I guess they wanted to give the date a bit more room, but now the logo looks like it's too close to the centre post and as a consequence it spends too much time obscured by the minute and hour hands, and looking at it, given that they've moved the logo could they not have moved the date window up to the '3' position as it was on the prototype (IIRC)? At least if the date was leveled up that would make the shield's new position more acceptable. Can you tell I'm not sold on this one? The weird thing is it looks good in the pictures, but as we know when it comes to watches, pictures only tell you half the story.
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