BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Quartz Limited Edition* Watch

 

WAZ101A.FC8305

Back in 2015, Mr Jean Claude Biver announced the original Carrera Heuer 01 skeleton watch to the world and I just 'knew' straight off the bat that it was the one for me. At the time I didn't even know how much it was, but I thought it was exceptional and I knew I was going to do whatever it took to get one. In the six years since I've never really had that 'absolutely-definitely-gotta have it' feeling from a new watch*. Until now... 

*Well there was that whole green Aquaracer debacle, but I'm not so sure about that now

I've always been drawn to colourful watches and in particular the original resin coated Formula 1s of the 1980s, But, cool as they are, they are pretty small by modern standards and it was always a dream of mine to own something similar but on a much more modern scale. This desire was intensified further recently when I saw that Calibre 11 forum member Albert-AMG had posted a photo of two of his Connected smartwatches wearing a couple of the old 80s F1 faces (which looked absolutely brilliant).

So when I got wind that this was coming out I really took notice. With it's super rich and bright orange dial (a surprisingly rare commodity in TAG Heuer land - see my upcoming Top 5 Best Orange Dial TAG Heuers post) and high contrast black/white hands and hour markers this was surely the nearest thing TAG Heuer were ever going to produce to scratch that particular itch.

And so I pretty quickly decided that this was one for me and because there seemed to be some element of limitedness to this one (although so far I've been unable to firmly establish if it genuinely is limited to 4000 pieces or not - Revolution Magazine seem to think it is) I decided not to wait around.

The watch is a TAG Heuer 'online exclusive', which I thought meant you can only buy it direct from TAG Heuer themselves, but it seems that what it actually means is that the only place you can buy it 'online' is the TAG Heuer website. Beaverbrooks have it on their website but you can't put it in your cart and go, you have to ring them to 'discuss' your purchase. Bizarre. And really I don't get what the point of this restriction is... if you want to sell the watch, just sell the watch, don't put obstacles in people's way for no good reason. 

Anyway, despite my last experience with buying from the TAG Heuer website (if you haven't read about it previously then you can find it HERE) I decided to go straight there, in part because I had heard about the totally epic boxes they've been sending stuff out in lately...

Whooah, a big black box!

With a super cool red interior... just like a boutique! 

A gorgeous document folder for your delivery note.

Which is even more delectable inside...

Comes complete with a carry case (in plastic)...

So damned cool.

Mind you I didn't really expect to receive one of these 'uber-boxes' given that the watch I was buying was at the lower end of the price range, but as you can see, apparently it makes no difference! I was stoked and I think it's pretty damned cool, but I must admit it does seem a little odd given the times we are living in for a big company like LVMH to be going quite this crazy on 'wasteful' packaging... it seems a bit like a red rag to a bull to me.

My concern centred more on what exactly I'm supposed to do with it though? I guess if this was my only watch and I had a nice chest of drawers to put it on then that would be really cool, but realistically it's probably going to end up under a bed or something, which is a damned shame... but my house is just too small for this kind of nonsense!

Incidentally, just to give you an idea of the scale of this box, if you look at the second picture in this little sequence you can see the table that it's standing on, that is not a side table it is my dining table that's well over a metre across!

But enough about the (exceptional) packaging, the important thing is what is inside and... to give you a little background, the day the watch arrived I decided to wear my Formula 1 Senna to work. The Senna is a weird one, it's one that I flip-flop on a lot and can never decide if I really like it or not. This day I decided 'not' (in fact I was looking on the internet to see how much I could expect to realise from selling it) and as such I had a rather negative feeling about coming home to another F1 that underneath all the cosmetic differences is basically the same watch.

So I told myself very sternly that if I was not 100% convinced by this new piece, then as much as it would pain me to do so I would have to send it back. Treat it like a shop try-on, think - if this was a boutique would you buy it or would you 'think about it', don't just let yourself drift into keeping it because it's the easy thing to do and then end up regretting it in a few weeks. Relatively affordable is still a lot of money at the end of the day.

But then I opened the box and the first thing that came out of my mouth was 'Wow!'.

This was exactly the kind of impact I was hoping to get when I first saw the Aston Martin Formula 1 but never did, and right away I knew that I was keeping it (and that maybe the Senna really would be going up for sale). It truly is hard to get across the impact this watch has in the flesh, it is quite stunning (my pictures do it no justice) and my one big worry about the dial was instantly allayed; that being the 'orangeness' of the dial. 

About 15 years ago TAG Heuer made some Formula 1 models with orange dials, but they were a bit light and they had silver dial elements which provided little contrast. About the same time or maybe a little later they also made an orange dial 500M Aquaracer, but by contrast the dial was too dark and matt (although it did have these kind of white and black hour markers and hands which looked great). Here though, they really hit it just right. The orange has exactly the right mixture of brightness and richness and and the white pops like crazy.

The white minute markers on the bezel also pop really well against the black ceramic insert, a feature that gives this watch an expensive look belying it's relatively affordable £1200 price tag. The only thing that I can find to say that is in any way negative about the dial is that the TAG Heuer logo seems a tiny bit anonymous... it could have been a touch bigger and more importantly they could have used a slightly thicker line weight for it, it just seems a bit lost against the orange background.

But hey, if that's the worst thing I have to say then it must be pretty perfect, and it is... except for one little thing (which we'll get to in a minute). Seriously though, this watch really is a stunner and I'm so glad I decided to go for it because it feels like this is a future classic in the making here. I don't know if it really is limited, and even if it is 4,000 pieces is still a LOT of watches, but regardless... I can see demand for this being super strong.

There's no getting away from the fact that it is 43mm, but to me it wears more like a 42mm and certainly wears smaller than my Senna F1 (WAZ1014) which is odd because they share the same case and the Senna is black so you'd think it would be the one that wore smaller. Maybe it is partly to do with the straps (very thick rubber on the Senna, but also thick nylon on the WAZ101A), but either way it feels great on the wrist...

And here's were we come to the 'but' you've been waiting for. TAG Heuer have put metal strap retainers on this strap which give it a NATO-esque feel (definitely not a positive for me, but I was prepared to live with them), these are basically a bent piece of metal with two spring bars fixing them to the nylon strap rather than solid pieces which are sewn into the strap itself. This is lucky because I will be taking them off the strap and replacing them with some rubber strap retainers I have ordered from eBay!

Leaving aside that they are ugly, leaving aside that the second retainer doesn't quite catch the tail of the strap on the hole that I wear it on... the ends of these things are square cut and sharp and they bugged me all day! I can't fathom that they didn't polish them smooth, just so ridiculous. Ironically if they had been solid and sewn into the material then they would have a curved edge and the problem wouldn't have arisen. But still, I'm sure the rubber retainers will look better and work better too since they will slide along the strap so that they can catch the end of the strap and keep it still, in fact I might only need one rather than two. Mind you, the nylon is very thick and the idea of it 'flapping about' is quite laughable - this thing is not going to flap about regardless!

That aside, the strap looks fantastic and like I said in my 'First Impressions' post I think the grey stitching on the 'desk facing' side of the strap is genius. I kinda, sorta planned to replace this with a black rubber strap, possibly one of those Isofrane ones with the slats in, but unless the rubber retainers idea goes south for some reason I very much doubt that I will, it looks great and is much more durable than I anticipated (and besides I am pathetically anal about keeping all my watches on genuine TAG Heuer straps).

Finally, I'm happy to report that the (subtly) textured dial of this one is properly lumed... which may sound like an odd thing to say, but those that remember my very unsatisfactory experience with the black and orange CAU2012 Formula 1 Calibre 16 will know what I'm talking about here (lume on the hands only, what on Earth where you thinking TAG Heuer?). 

Overall, leaving aside the stupid, sharp metal strap retainers, I'm super impressed with this one and it's amazing how much it stands out next to all my other watches. This is a loud watch for sure and definitely not for everyone, but if you like a bright, rich dial that pops like CRAZY then this one is surely for you.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier, the date window really isn't in the middle at all, or at least it isn't now - earlier photos it seems fine, which is peculiar. I think it may need a trip back to the workshop sooner rather than later to sort that out!

Pick it up on the TAG Heuer website now:

https://www.tagheuer.com/gb/en/timepieces/collections/tag-heuer-formula-1/43-mm-quartz/WAZ101A.FC8305.html