ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 16 Chronograph

CV2A80.FC6256

TAG Heuer Boutique / Bicester Village, 22nd July 2019

Well this one really took me by surprise. I've never really been that taken with the 'classic' Carrera, and the ones I tend to gravitate to are the ones with the 'modern' slant, like the Calibre S or the one with the perforated rubber strap. So when I saw this on the new stock list a couple of weeks ago I was mildly interested, but seeing it in the flesh is a whole different ballgame. This Carrera is absolutely stunning!

I've always quite liked the Carreras with the minute markers (as opposed to hour markers), but often they have a reflective surface and on a black dial they are almost impossible to read unless you get them at the right angle. Here the Arabic numerals are white, which looks great and makes them very legible, and the same goes for the hands which are super obvious and in this instance I don't even mind that the day and date wheels are white, in fact it kinda works.

The dial is a very sporty looking carbon effect dial and the red second hand gives it another sporty element. The case is 43mm and made of titanium so it's a good bit lighter than your average Carrera. Flip the watch over and you get a display back showing off the Calibre 16 movement inside.

So far so good, and what about that strap? Well, it looks kinda like the 'cloth' straps on many of the new Aquaracers (including my WAY208C) and it feels like rubber, but apparently it's a textured calf-skin, which is very surprising, but very comfortable and it looks superb. Can you tell I am blown away by this watch, it really is quite something and apparently it's one that's constantly being fetched out of the cupboard for 'try-ons'. That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, what surprises me is that no one has bought it yet!

The CV2A80 is currently available at the Bicester Village outlet at a discounted price of £3185 (reduced from £5750) and I'd have to say it would be worth every single penny of that. I had to restrain myself from flexing my credit card, but I may yet try to work something out here, because this one is something special. Maybe I need to rethink my 50th birthday plans here... as cool as that new green Aquaracer is, this kinda trumps it (but then it's a lot more expensive too). Hmm...