TAG HEUER ENTHUSIAST: FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Monaco Heuer 02 'Grand Prix de Monaco Historique' Limited Edition

Monday, 11 May 2020

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Monaco Heuer 02 'Grand Prix de Monaco Historique' Limited Edition

CBL2114.FC6486

So I guess it was kind of inevitable after the success of the '1979-1989' 50th Anniversary Monaco that we would see another red Monaco at some point, after all only 169 lucky people got to take one of those home! So here we are almost a year later and what do we have but a, well... not exactly another 'red' Monaco, but one with a significant amount of red on the dial.

This new Monaco was timed to coincide with the 'Historic Monaco Grand Prix' which traditionally runs two weeks prior to the current Formula 1 Grand Prix, but of course both of these events have now been cancelled due to Coronavirus. I was actually aware of this event because my brother in law has attended as a mechanic in the past and if I remember correctly it's an event that you have to be invited to attend, so pretty exclusive!

This watch, if not quite as 'exclusive' as the CAW211W is still limited to just 1000 pieces, which seems a reasonable number. I get that TAG Heuer wanted to (sort of) tie the 50th anniversary limited editions to the number '69', but it did seem like they could have easily sold four of five times that number of watches in time.

No doubt you'll have noticed the two colour dial, which is pretty unusual to say the least. The more I look at it the more I like it and the silver dial looks great with that vibrant red background. The red subdials also look fantastic against the silver circle, the only thing I'm not too keen on is those red dot hour markers (I presume they are not lume?), but then I do wonder if they will be so noticeable when looking at the actual watch rather than a 5x actual size photograph? Probably not...

It's also nice to see the TAG Heuer logo up there at the '12' position rather than the simpler 'Heuer' one we got to see an awful lot of last year, especially since this Monaco is powered by the in-house Heuer 02 chronograph (the default replacement for the 'retired' Calibre 12 movement). I must admit the first time I saw the new 'modern' TAG Heuer logo on a Monaco I thought it looked a little out of place, but familiarity seems to have worked in its favour and now it seems to give the Monaco something of a modern angle, which I for one appreciate.

A nice contrast to that 'modern edge' is the classic racing car hovering just above the dial at the 1:30 position, a small detail but one that really adds something to an already impactful dial.

This is a nice addition to the Monaco line and I am glad they decided to release it despite the 2020 race's cancellation. I think we are all in need of something to take our minds off what's going on in the world at the moment and I am confident that this year will see a number of cool new TAG Heuer pieces for us all to admire and covet.