I don't really understand these watches, or rather the release logic of these watches. Why did we have a 'Year of the Rat' Autavia for 2020, a 'Year of the Tiger' Carrera for 2022, a 'Year of the Rabbit' Carrera for 2023 and 'Year of the Dragon' Carreras (one steel and one solid gold) for 2024 but we missed out the Ox (2021, well okay, maybe Covid killed that one) and the Snake (2025)?
In a way I can understand the Ox, because after all there's nothing sexy about an 'Ox', but then there's nothing particularly sexy about a rat either, and 2027 is the year of the goat (or sheep). I just can't imagine a Carrera with a goat on the back, can you? Oh I do hope they prove me wrong... a Carrera Tourbillon with a goat skull (and maybe a candle) on the back would probably sell well to affluent members of the Metal community at least. 🤣
We'll see, but for now we have this brand new for 2026 'Year of the Horse' Carrera glassbox and... well, I gotta say I'm not exactly loving it. It looks like they've taken that previous 'Japanese' aesthetic with the single red subdial and recycled it here mixed with the previous 'Year of the Dragon' model, but then messed it up by switching out the silver dial for champagne. I'm just not sure the red subdial and the champagne dial go together personally.
On a more positive note the bracelet looks good on all these new glassbox Carreras and I'm sure there will plenty of positive comments about that, and the 'horse' print over the display caseback is attractive too.
Finally, we have the date wheel which is red (again, not really loving that but I guess they did that to try to balance the subdial) and features the Chinese Zodiac symbol for the horse on the 7th day of each month. Maybe adding the applied dial furniture in gold was a touch too much, perhaps silver would have worked better with the champagne and red, but I'm not really sure... it looks better in the render than in the photograph below I think.
There are just 250 pieces available and so far it doesn't seem to be on any of TAG Heuer's websites. In fact if you Google the part number the only place it shows up so far is Chrono 24. No doubt this one will be sent straight to the Asian boutiques and we'll only get to hear about it officially when they want to sell it outside the Pacific region.
Okay, let's see what the Council have to say about this one... I tell ya what though, I'm glad I decided not to do every single watch this year because this is number 54 and there's another 25 we skipped over! And we ain't done yet, either! We still got a crazy Monaco Rattrapante Air 1, two green dial Carreras from Dubai Watch Week and TWO 'Las Vegas' Limited Editions to get through...
And of course all 80+ watches will be rescored in a few weeks, when we will also be crowning the 'Council of Considered Opinion Watch of the Year'. Hard to say what's going to come out on top this year, as there's not really one 'standout obvious belter' that everyone can get behind. Should be fun!
1/10: "If you can’t think of something positive of any kind, then say nothing at all."
7/10: "Not bad at all. I like the colourway, the red subdial and date wheel works ok for me. Less keen on the horse caseback,but overall it's a decent looking watch if a little uninspiring."
3/10: "I know I'm not the target audience but I really don't like this. The dial looks unbalanced and the champagne colour doesn't work for me."
6/10: "Great design apart from the glassbox."
5/10: "I like the champagne dial and the bracelet, less keen on the big red subdial though as it looks very clunky. The backplate design is also a nice detail."
6/10: "The dial is cool. But it doesn't match to the steel case and bracelet. I like that new bracelet though."
1/10: "Hate it!"
6/10: "The render looks alright but the picture doesn't look too appealing."
8/10: "The bracelet should be awesome."
7.5/10: "Overall nice design, but the dial looks a little unbalanced."
4/10: "If this were a silver dial with steel indices it'd be straight fire. As usual, TAG goes one detail too far and jumbles it up though."
1/10: "Watch basically ok, not sure about the shade of red and definitely don’t want/need the horse gimmick."
8/10: "I like it. The champagne & red combo dial looks good to my eyes. Quite possibly my favourite of all the Zodiac animal watches released by TAG so far."
4/10: "I don't particularly like the new glassboxes, and this one is one of my least favourites... neither the coloor combination between the dial and case, nor the bracelet, and also the fact that it's an LE without being properly numbered."
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