Pages

▼

Sunday, 14 February 2021

FEATURE: The C.O.C.O. Council Rates the TAG Heuer Gulf Watches


I hope you enjoyed Jim Dollares (and friends) 'Gulf Mania' posts last week, I can't say I agree with everything he said, but I do agree that the CAW211T is probably the best Gulf Monaco TAG Heuer have given us yet. But the watch community is notoriously opinionated and it got me wondering what the 'Council of Considered Opinion' would make of the Gulf Monacos and indeed all of the Gulf Special Editions. So I sent them a copy of Jim's Gulf montage and asked them to score each watch out of ten. Twenty-one members of the council were enlisted, with nineteen submitting replies by the deadline, did they support Jim's claims or not? Let's find out...


#8. WAH1013.BA0860 - 5.7/10

No prizes for guessing that this humble quartz Formula 1 Gulf Edition would come out at the bottom of this poll. Despite that, these present an affordable(ish) entry route into the world of Gulf watches and remain popular with watch enthusiasts to this day. This was available on a steel bracelet or a fairly nasty rubber strap (actually the strap is fine, it's the clasp that is nasty) and gives you a small seconds, skeletonised hands, great lume and a grand date! What's not to like?


#7. CW2118.FC6207 - 6.0/10

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the white dial CW2118 fared the worst of the Monacos in this particular poll, but still managed a respectable score of 6/10. The eternal question remains of whether this was a proper 'Gulf' watch or not, but perhaps for the Steve McQueen fan this is the ultimate 'not actually a Gulf' Monaco' since it ties in with the classic photo of him in his race suit.


#6. CW211A.FC6228 - 6.4/10

This was the second, or first 'proper' Gulf Monaco depending on your point of view. I quite like that is has black subdials, but presumably this was not a popular design feature as ever since the subdials have been in contrasting colours such as white or silver. Note how narrow the Gulf stripes are here, it won't last...


#5. CAW2113.FC6250 - 6.4/10

Just edging ahead by dint of an actual score of 6.45 versus the CW211A's 6.41, we now see the introduction of the contrasting subdials. But, of course, there is still one little problem with this one that's holding it back in the eyes of cognoscenti... can you guess what it is? Hint: it's not that the stripes are still too narrow, though we'll come to that soon enough.


#4. CAL5110.FC6265 - 6.7/10

For the divisive Monaco 24, fourth was probably the highest one could reasonably expect, especially given the 'old school conservationists' that inhabit the C.O.C.O. This was the most expensive of all Gulf branded TAG Heuer watches with an original list price of £10,000+; nowadays you would need to find somewhere in the region of £6-7000 to put this on your wrist and while I like it, I think if I had that kind of money to spend I would be looking elsewhere. A point of interest, the CAL5110 was the main inspiration for the 'Dark Oil Lord' concept watch.


#3. CAZ101N.FC8243 - 7.2/10

Rightly proposed by Mr Dollares as the 'Gulf Prince', the current quartz Formula 1 Gulf SE garnered a very decent score 7.2/10, in the process beating out all other 'TAG Heuer' branded Gulf pieces - quite an achievement when you think about it. Personally I'm not keen on the very short, slightly weird blue strap (or the black pushers and crown actually) but help is at hand as this watch is now being sold by several retailers with both the leather strap and a BA0842 steel bracelet for £1625.


#2. CAW211R.FC6401 - 7.4/10

And so rather predictably it came down to a head to head between the two 'Heuer' branded Monacos, the regular CAW211R that you can buy in any branch of Goldsmiths and the CAW211T that you can't buy anywhere and even if you could it would cost you an arm and a leg because they only made 50. Perhaps not surprisingly, the super limited CAW211T came out on top, leaving the CAW211R to languish in second place. For all Jim's rage, this is still a nice watch, but there's no getting away from the fact that that blue isn't the 'classic' pale blue of the Porsche 917s of old. Gulf 'Queen' anyone?


#1. CAW211T.FC6440 - 7.8/10

So there it is, the Gulf King is indeed the 'Gulf King' after all; though having said that, one member of the council scored it as low as 3/10! The CAW211T was the only watch to get more than one maximum score though, in fact it picked up three 10s, making it the clear winner by any metric. Clearly though with a score of 7.8 there still seems to be room for improvement, at least in the twisted minds of the C.O.C.O. (the red highlights seem to be a particular sticking point) and get a load of those stripes, if they get any wider they won't even need to worry about a background colour! 


Right, I think that absolutely concludes our coverage of the Gulf branded TAG Heuers for the time being!


GULF MANIA: PART ONE

GULF MANIA: PART TWO

GULF MANIA: PART THREE

at

No comments:

Post a Comment