WAZ1014.FT8027
I distinctly remember the first time I clapped eyes on the WAZ1014 (and its chronograph cousin the CAZ1019) in the window of Steffans Jewellers in Northampton way back in late 2017. My first impression was that I loved the contrast between the aluminium bezel and black surround and case, but I found the red hands a bit glossy for my liking. To be completely honest at the time the dial itself didn't make too much of an impression on me (other than the fact that it annoyed me how cluttered the chronograph looked with the stripes all but annihilated by the subdials), but the strap certainly did...
The strap is an odd one. When it first arrived on the Manchester United Formula 1 in early 2017 I struggled to understand the design concept since I was looking at it all wrong. I foolishly assumed that it was somehow connected to Manchester United (it being red and black) and so I was focusing on the red design and wondering if it was supposed to represent the devil's pitchfork or something. Of course eventually I realised that the red is merely representing the 'gaps' between the 'links' and that it is supposed to represent the 'Link' watch bracelet, but at the time I couldn't see it. I mean, quite why that is relevant to Manchester United I don't understand - here with the Senna connection it makes a whole lot more sense. I can only conclude the idea was formulated for use with this watch and then somebody decided it would work well on the Manchester United model too... because, dur - red and black!
The strap is actually my favourite thing about this watch... which I realise is a pretty bizarre statement to make, but I really, really like it! I guess it would have been a whole lot cheaper to just buy the strap and put it on something else, but since I didn't have a suitable watch that wasn't really an option. It's pretty thick, which some people may find off-putting, but it doesn't really bother me. At 43mm this is quite a chunky watch so I think it probably needs a fairly solid rubber strap to keep it in place and at least being thick like this you know it will probably last a good while.
I probably would never have bought this watch if it wasn't for the fact that one day I looked in a jewellers window and there it was, pre-owned and still with over a year's warranty left on it. The watch was immaculate, with only a small mark on the rubber strap. If I remember correctly it was £895 and I traded another watch in which brought it down to £695 or thereabouts.
If the strap is my favourite part of the watch, then the dial is my least favourite. I do feel like the dial lets the rest of the watch down a little bit. For me the black case and aluminium bezel is a stunning combination, but the dial is so.... subdued, I guess would be a good word. I really cannot for the life of me fathom the logic of using phantom lume for the '12' and '6' markers and standard lume for all the other hour markers, all it really does is highlight how completely useless it is!
And having decided to go down that route, I feel it would have been worth making the applied markers a bit thicker, because in all honesty most of the time (even) in daylight it's hard to see they are there. But of course they wouldn't have needed to if they'd just used normal lume all over. Can you tell this really is my one 'issue' with this watch? The dial isn't all that special, but it's fine; it's overshadowed by the case, the bezel and the strap, but it's fine and that one change would have gone a long way to making it better.
Don't be fooled by this lumeshot, to get this picture I had to liberally does the watch with UV light and turn the contrast up on the picture, most of the time you will see the hour markers just fine and if you're lucky you will get a faint hint that there is also a '12' and a '6' there too. See picture further down the page...
So you can probably tell by now that I have mixed emotions about this watch, sometimes I really like it and sometimes I really don't. In fact, it wasn't that long ago that I put it up for sale, but after about five hours I took it down again. It does seem to be quite collectible now, I've seen this one on Watchfinder at £200+ more than it's original price - which is bizarre in a way, but at the same time the market dictates the prices through supply and demand, and they sold it fairly quickly so somebody obviously thought it was worth it.
Last year I noticed that the watch had an issue with the date wheel. In normal use it would change perfectly, but the quick set date function was not working. Since it was still under warranty (just) I rushed it back to TAG Heuer at Bicester Village and to make matters worse while trying to demonstrate the problem I managed to pull the crown completely out of the watch. Let me tell you, that is a HORRIBLE feeling... I still don't really get how I did it, but I was assured that it happens more often than you'd think and the most important thing is not to force it back into the watch (which is the knee-jerk reaction). At least it was my watch... and it was already broken!
The watch came back quite quickly, but unfortunately during the repair process somehow the lume had fallen out of the minute hand (the lume wasn't inside the watch so it must have come off while the hands were out of the case). I didn't notice for a couple of days, in fact it wasn't until I took this photograph that it dawned on me what had happened. I actually quite like the skeletonised hand look, and if it wasn't for the fact that leaving it would have affected it's potential resale value I might have been tempted to leave it...
Of course I didn't and TAG Heuer repaired it within a week or so, so no harm done. My first reaction was to think how could the person who repaired it not notice that the lume was missing, but then I remembered that neither I nor the staff at Bicester Village noticed either. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned here that photographs show up problems more than looking at the actual watch? It's an interesting hypothesis!
All in all, while I don't regret buying this one (most of the time) I think if I was in a position where I needed to sell some watches to raise some money this one could be one of the ones to go - and if someone was to come along and offer me a grand for it, I probably wouldn't have to think too hard about it.
I see this one has also become a role model for the fakers, which is a sure sign that it's a popular model - so if you're reading this and thinking you'd like to pick one of these up yourself, please be careful where and from whom you buy.
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