ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Monaco Heuer 02 'Gulf Edition' Chronograph

 

CBL2115.FC6494

TAG Heuer Boutique / Meadowall, Sheffield 18th June 2022

It's been a little while since I've had a Heuer 02 Monaco on my wrist, or any Monaco for that matter. In fact I think the last time I actually tried one on was February 2020 and that was a 37mm model with a white Mother of Pearl dial, a white strap and diamonds adorning the case. The last time I had a 'proper' Monaco on my wrist was December 2019, so it's perhaps not surprising that in the past two and a half years I had overinflated the size of the watch in my mind a bit. For sure it's not small, but neither is it an unwearable monster on my 7.1/2" wrist. In fact on re-acquaintance it seemed altogether quite reasonable!

And so we come to the new Gulf Monaco, a watch that received many positive words from the 'Council of Considered Opinion' on release, much to my surprise - seeing that it was replacing a Heuer branded Gulf, and one of the better ones the company has produced to date.

I will say that when I first saw the render for this one, way back in 2021, I thought those stripes looked a little oddly placed, and now all this time later.... I still can't quite get my head around them being right over there and running 'behind' the main dial, but then again it is a kind of neat solution to the inevitable problem of working them around the chronograph subdials. I guess it's something that you'd get used to and it does leave the rest of the dial free to shine, and shine it does: this blue is absolutely gorgeous! 

As for the rest of the dial, I don't really have a problem with the 'Gulf' logo being rendered in white, it actually looks quite neat that way, and the orange and blue on the right hand subdial is fine. I think without that it would look a little sparse to be honest, especially since the 'Gulf' stripes are kind of out of the way and fairly thin compared to some past versions we've seen.

The '60' at the '12' position was a bit contentious on release and while I don't mind it it doesn't really look like it belongs if I'm being completely honest. At least this watch doesn't have the terribly clashing red dots that previous 'Gulf' Monacos have had. Orange and red do not go well, so it's good to see that they've finally done away with those.

Overall, I think this one is okay, but I think I prefer the previous version overall. I do think it's kind of strange that they've gone back to TAG Heuer branding from Heuer when the 'Gulf' thing is so rooted in the 70s and Steve McQueen and all that. But then again, this is a Heuer 02 not a Calibre 11 so it does make sense from that perspective. 

Overall I have mixed feelings about this one, but having said that, I definitely preferred it to the orange dial Aquaracer that I tried on at the same time.