CAZ101Y.BA0842
Michael Jones / Northampton, 23rd September 2019
Just a short post this morning while we wait for the new Monaco to be revealed at 1pm today... come back later for my take on that.
So this is one that I found a few months ago on one of those Czech websites that publish everything the minute they get wind of it (embargoes be damned) and so of course I enquired about it and again I was told it wasn't released yet so I sat on it, forgot about it... and the next thing I know it's in my local AD (can you tell I'm getting a little bit frustrated with these embargoes)!
What I don't understand is how it got released without me noticing, I mean it's not like I don't look at watch sites constantly. Maybe nobody thought it was worth talking about, but you'd have thought TAG Heuer themselves would have 'announced' it somewhere, wouldn't you?
Okay, so what can I say about this one? Well, it's not the best looking watch I've ever seen and it does look very chunky and very metallic. It's definitely not a 'dressy' watch in any shape or form, in fact it conjures up a slightly unfortunate 'betting shop chic' image in my head, which is perhaps unfair but a tad amusing nonetheless.
Doubtless the chunkiness is at least partly because of the very industrial looking steel bezel, but also down to the coloured dial edge which tricks the eye into thinking that the central (black) dial is smaller than it really is. This is similar in fact to the Aquagraph, which also exhibits the same visual trickery (albeit there it's because the bezel is quite thick but also smaller than the case), but this illusion can also make the watch appear thicker - which is not always a welcome side effect. Speaking of that coloured outer rim, the red there is a fair bit darker than this render suggests, which is a shame as it's definitely not as striking as I'd hoped. Actually it's similar in that regard to some previous Formula 1's with red edged dials like the rather underwhelming CAU1116 for example.
Searching online has drawn a complete blank as regards actual photographs, Chrono 24 couldn't help me and even the TAG Heuer website doesn't have a single proper photograph of this watch; no wonder there's such a 'buzz' about it! Oh well, I might as well tell you that the list price is £1250, it has an estimated two year battery life and rhodium plated indexes. No really, battery life, that's what it's come to.
Are you excited now? Didn't think so... see you later for the new Monaco.
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