CBN2048.FC8323 CBN201H.FC6553
At the tail end of 2019 TAG Heuer surprised us all with their 'Year of the Rat' bronze cased Autavia. Surprised us because a) it was the first 'Year of the ...' the company had ever produced (as far as I'm aware) and b) because the backplate had a rather amusing rat-racing driver motif on it! Now I'm not sure if there ever was a 'Year of the Ox' piece planned for 2021, I always assumed the Ox was a hard sell (being neither cute, cool, comic or particularly endearing), and with China in lockdown for a lot of that year I guess if there was an Ox-watch then presumably TAG Heuer took the decision to abandon it.
We then got the 'Year of the Tiger' Carrera for 2022 (well the Calibre 5 version, the chronograph turned up half way through 2023 for some reason) and the 'Year of the Rabbit' H02 Carrera for 2023 (complete with peculiar fur-flecked dial), so now it's the turn of the mighty dragon. Now to me the dragon should be a no-brainer, it's what us Westeners think of when we think of Asia, so you'd kind of imagine there would be some kind of dragon on the dial of these new 42mm Carreras.
Well there is, but not in the form that most of us would recognize, instead TAG Heuer have gone with a more tasteful 'cursive script' symbol to represent the dragon, which is probably a good move and makes the watch a little less 'Harry Potter' than it might have been. There is still a dragon on the clear display back though, which at first glance I thought was on the rotor (oh what a shame it isn't), to me though, this looks a lot better on the gold model than the steel.
Often times when a watch is made to celebrate something or someone it's best to keep the majority of the 'celebrating' on the back (the first Red Bull Formula 1 is a perfect example of this, being a cool watch in it's own right and completely unencumbered by logos or other dial-debris) and with these 'dragon' watches TAG Heuer has also kept the dial fairly 'clean'; the cursive script being reasonably unobtrusive and leaving us with two very smart looking watches that don't 'scream' at you.
Photo by Abrod520
It's quite hard to choose between them, and even the majority of the Council of Considered Opinion has scored them quite close together (albeit rather predictably ultimately coming down on the side of the steel version). Personally I think the gold is perhaps a smidge better, although it does rather bring to mind the solid-gold 'Man on the Moon Speedmaster 50th Anniversary' watch with that combination of gold and burgundy (perhaps no bad thing).
From the pictures on the TAG Heuer website it looks like the straps are two slightly different shades of red; they certainly have different part numbers - though they would anyway because the steel model comes on a discreet deployant clasp while the rose gold model has a classic pin and buckle fastening.
The steel model, which is limited to 300 pieces, retails at £5500, while the rose gold comes in at a chunky £19,650 and is only available to 50 lucky owners.
Next year is the 'Year of the Snake' and after that I guess we will find out if TAG Heuer will continue this series as we get to some less 'sexy' animals - horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.. I just can't see a 'Year of the Pig' Carrera somehow, can you?
Okay, time to find out what the esteemed Council has to say about these...
Steel: 6.5/10 Rose gold: 7/10 - "Nice Carrera Elegant, but I don’t like it as much as other LE versions of this watch (French, Ikuzawa, Chronotempvs…), so I score it below those other versions (and also the strap is reducing my score by half point. I would prefer a rally leather strap in this colour)."
Steel: 7/10 Rose Gold: 4/10 - "I like the colour combo of the red/steel, subtle and classy."
Steel: 6.5/10 Rose gold: 7/10 - "Compared to the Year of the Rabbit, the Dragon is more tastefully done. With the stripes of the Tiger and fur of the Rabbit, I was almost expecting Dragon scales. But there's nothing on the dial that screams Dragon. The subtle use of the Chinese cursive for Dragon above the date is the only clue, which I think is a nice touch. I prefer the look of the gold and burgundy red combo."
Steel: 7/10 Rose Gold: 7/10 - "Actually both work well."
Steel: 4/10 Rose Gold: 5/10 - "Sorry, wee squiggles on the dial do nowt for me, means nothing to me but hiked prices. Local jobbing jeweller I know reckons he could supply a hunk of gold for £20k, should hold the value better but maybe not so tidy looking."
Steel: 6/10 Rose Gold: 8/10 - "Year of... watches seem to be good for Chinese, but difficult for Japanese. These watches seem to sell like hot cakes in China."
Steel: 3/10 Rose Gold: 1/10 - "Neither of these do anything for me I'm afraid and the rose gold is a positive turn off, ignoring the price. The colours just don't work for me. It's quite a cool caseback, but I'm not Chinese so the concept of "Year of the..." watches doesn't really work for me in the first place. These are nearly always models produced for the sake of it and the colour schemes bear little relevance to the subject."
Steel: 5/10 Rose Gold: 4/10 - "Granted, I am not the target audience for these pieces."
Steel: 6/10 Rose Gold: 4/10 - "I find the mythical motto interesting. As a European, I am jealous of this. I'd rather see a dragon on the back of my watch than the name of some (Dutch)racing driver!"
Steel: 6/10 Rose Gold: 5/10 - "I like the details on the dials but the straps are horrible."
Steel: 6/10 Rose Gold: 4/10 - "I think the 42mm Carrera Elegant is the best style Carrera at the moment. These look decent, but aren’t the best in that range. I don’t hate either, but am rather indifferent as don’t stand out either. Probably the strap colour is a bit meh maybe?"
Steel: 2/10 Rose Gold: 7/10 - "Gold on gold is a golden way of showing off beautiful gold."
Steel: 8/10 Rose Gold: 6.5/10 - "Quite liking the silver version and against my better judgment I’m loving the Dragon caseback. Not a gold man normally so will score that a bit less. In general a nice watch I feel."
Steel: 4/10 Rose Gold: 6/10 - "The print on the caseback is lame (IMHO). Would have been much cooler with a dragon rotor (at least for the gold model). Not sure I like the print on the dial either. The gold one works better anyway, the steel one is a dud (in my view)."
Steel: 6/10 Rose Gold: 7/10 - "I am not sure if I would like to wear this colour. If the Dragon was a Rotor, that would have been awesome. But ok it's just a print."
Steel: 5/10 Rose Gold: 4/10 - "This just isn't me."
Steel: 6/10 Rose Gold: 7/10 - "Not sure if I like these that much but maybe they will look better in real life."
Steel 4/10 Rose Gold: 5/10 - "What a letdown if this is how a great year of Carreras ends. I would hope that they look better in person as the colour choices don’t work well to me at all."
Steel: 6.5/10 Rose Gold: 6/10 - "Overall it's a good job. The choice of red works well and glad they used it in the markers too. Just not sure about the writing/symbol on the dial, would have liked a dragon myself. Initially I thought I preferred the gold version, but the steel has grown on me more and I think it seems to work better with the red."
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