FEATURE: A Look Back at 2025 with Jim Dollare$

Editor's note, this was written over the course of a couple of weeks and things were released in the meantime so there may be some contradiction in comments! Also, fair warning, this article is typically rambling and may contain silliness, irreverence and general nonsense. You have been warned!

Rob: Hi Jim and welcome back to the TAG Heuer Enthusiast Blog, we've missed your unique insights into the crazy world of watches (and really you still owe us a couple of 'Buying Experience' posts, but I guess we'll let you off those now 😁).

Jim: Hey Rob, thanks for reaching out, I am excited to reflect on the year of 2025. For me this has been a big year in my personal life and I kind of feel bad for not keeping up with watch releases as I would have wanted during the year. Well, I have seen the new releases, but half are already forgotten! Perhaps it just means that half were forgettable?

Rob: Could be that, yes...

Jim: How about kicking off with some highlights? Tell me one watch that stood out to you and why, and perhaps I will tell you why you are wrong. I know without doubt what my 2025 favourites and highlights are.

FEATURE: The C.O.C.O. Council Watch of the Year 2025

 

Hello readers and welcome back to the most important post of the year; the results of the 'Council of Considered Opinion's Watch of the Year' vote (hereafter referred to as C.O.C.O.W.O.T.Y.)! 

As I said before, for the most part I haven't been overly enthused by this year's releases and it seems I'm not alone. I've noticed that the average scores have fallen again this year and I'm sure part of the reason for that is the rising prices. It's hard to really root for something and give it a big score if you don't really feel it's worth the money. As such you probably won't be surprised to learn that none of this year's watches managed to break into the 8s (albeit three watches did scramble their way to a top scoring 7.8/10). 

In the end only two of those three watches made it onto the podium and bizarrely the watch which finished in third place already had it's score revealed on the 24th! And as we will see soon, that score proved very important indeed!

We will of course come to that in good time, but first let's now take a look at the scores for the watches which scored at least a 7/10...

FEATURE: The TAG Heuer Releases of 2025

 

At the start of the year I confidently (some might say foolishly) stated that this year things would be different and that I would write more about older watches, do more feature posts and generally write less about every single new release. Well.... that didn't exactly pan out like I hoped did it? I did avoid writing about a number of new watches, but TAG Heuer released so many watches this year (and so many limited editions) that it became almost impossible to keep things to a sensible balance. 

So once again I will have to have a long hard think over Christmas about exactly how I'm going to manage the blog in 2026. If TAG Heuer are going to continue to release 80, 90, 100 watches a year then I need to find a way to include more of them without giving each one a 'First Impressions' post and score. It's just not sustainable, especially as next year I want to focus (at least a little) on the 40th birthday of the Formula 1 - and as it happens I already have plans for that.

Maybe next year I will do a 'release round up' every month or two (which was an idea I pondered last year), I don't know... but I will come back to this soon. For now it's time to focus on the work that's already been done and the watches that have already been released...

Generally speaking it's been a bit of a 'meh' year from my perspective and there's been very few watches that have really caught my attention. In fact the only watches that I would really like to own have all been Monacos and sadly all three of those are too expensive for me to consider at present. Ah well, there's always next year - thank God TAG Heuer keep on moving, at least you know there's always the possibility of something exciting just around the corner!

But if the watches of 2025 have been a little disappointing, the blog itself has gone from strength to strength. I know I can't really trust the page view statistics (1.46m views over the last 12 months... for a single brand blog?) but I have seen a dramatic increase in comments left, so I know that more and more people are visiting, and that's really nice to see. Honestly this blog is a lot of work to keep up to date, maintain and improve and there's so much more I'd like to do if only I had the time... so thank you all for your comments and I hope I've helped people where I could.

Okay let's take a look at the 2025 watches and as you probably guessed there were no new Autavias or Links again this year. Honestly I don't know why they don't just dump the existing Links in the outlets and knock it on the head (or start again?), it's getting a little bit embarrassing at this point!

As usual, I've given you the scores for most of the watches but I've held back the top scorers for the big reveal on the 27th when this year's 'Council of Considered Opinion's Watch of the Year' will be announced.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre TH20-00 'Australian' Limited Edition Chronograph

 

"Am I missing something?" asked my watch enthusiast (and COCO member) wife. "Is there supposed to be something here that I can't see, like a koala or a kangaroo or something?"

"Errr, no," I replied.

"Oh, so what's 'Australian' about this watch exactly?"

Here we go... I thought.

"Ah yes, well as it happens I can help you there, because I read an article about the watch on the Time & Tide website. So the design is basically a mash up of the vintage Ronnie Peterson Carrera and the Jo Siffert Autavia. The stripe on the dial is from the Carrera and the blue hands and black subdials are from the Autavia."

"Who are Ronnie Peterson and Jo Siffert?"

"They were Grand Prix drivers."

"Australian Grand Prix drivers?"

"Nope, Ronnie Peterson was Swedish and Jo Siffert was Swiss, they are both dead unfortunately. But when they were alive they were mates with Jack Heuer and Jo Siffert in particular used to buy watches from Jack and sell them to people in the pitlane, which helped create the bond between Heuer and F1."

"Okay... but what does that have to do with Australia?"

"I'm glad you asked, because again, according to the Time & Tide article this watch 'represents the bond of friendship'. And as everyone knows friendship is a big thing for Australians."

"I'm not really seeing the connection. Is friendship uniquely Australian?"

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre TH20-00 'Fragment' Limited Edition Chronograph

 

You know, some posts are a lot easier to write than others. This one I've already written twice and I'm still not happy with it... so here I am three hours before the publishing deadline trying yet again to finish it. Given how short of time I am, instead of tying myself in knots trying to be clever or sarcastic or whatever, I think instead I'm just going to be brutally honest. 

And okay, maybe a little sarcastic... (to be honest it's going to be hard not to be).

TLDR: I really don't like this watch. 

Don't get me wrong, it's not the worst watch I've ever seen, it's not even the worst TAG Heuer of 2025; that 'privilege' undoubtedly belongs to the godawful 'Osaka Expo' Carrera. But in a way it feels worse. Because while that watch is intrinsically flawed in its 'design', it at least feels kind of 'honest' in its 'execution'... whereas this one genuinely feels like a case of the Emperor's new clothes.

ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Carrera Extreme Sports GMT Chrono & Lilac 36mm and 41mm Day/Date Carreras

 

TAG Heuer Boutique / Meadowhall, Sheffield 31st October 2025

A few weeks ago I stopped in at the Meadowhall boutique on the way to a concert in Sheffield, it's always nice to visit as the staff are great and there's a surprising amount of pieces in there that you don't find in AD's or most other TAG Heuer boutiques that I've been in! Sometimes things show up ages after you've forgotten they've come out and sometimes they surprise you with something that you only found out about a few days beforehand. One such example being the new Carrera Extreme Sports GMT in green and black pictured below.

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Carrera Extreme Sports Chronograph by Hourstriker

 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph & Calibre 16 Chronograph 'Qatar GP' Limited Edition

The 2025 Qatar Grand Prix turned out to be rather 'dramatic' didn't it? And almost farcical in the way it set up Formula 1 for a three way finale in Abu Dhabi. Honestly, if this season was a film we'd all be tutting and saying it was 'far-fetched' wouldn't we? So perhaps it's only fitting that TAG Heuer released a pair of (slightly) 'dramatic' looking new Formula 1's in the days leading up to the race, following the pattern that's prevailed throughout the year of 'associating' new F1 Solargraphs with Grand Prix without going as far as explicitly naming them for the races. Maybe Liberty Media wanted even more money for that? 🤣

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Carrera MEIA & UK Limited Edition Chronographs

 

As you may have noticed, I recently revamped the 'Part Number' index page with photo banners for each model instead of text. This not only makes the page look much nicer but is also easier to click on if you are viewing the blog on a phone (which I know a lot of you do). I also tidied up the text on the individual pages and increased the font size to make it easier to read. 

As I was doing this it occurred to me that I could write some posts about region specific 'Limited Editions' and the first one that I thought of was 'Middle East' L/Es. You might be surprised how many there have been, starting way back in the 1990s with a 'Saudi Arabian Equestrian Foundation' Formula 1 chronograph and most recently with these new glassbox Carreras. I will most likely post this in January, so look out for that, but for now let's investigate these new models further.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Monaco Rattrapante 'Air 1' Limited Edition

 

I'll admit I haven't exactly been complimentary about the previous Monaco Rattrapantes. Obviously I haven't seen one in person and it's entirely possible that they are one of those watches that just doesn't photograph well (much like the Grand Carrera), but until now I've found them spectacularly unappealing, despite several different colour combinations being released. But now TAG Heuer have given us this new $150,000 limited edition (30pcs) and if nothing else they've certainly improved it's kerb appeal.

But it's more than just a new colour combo (and black and gold is almost always a winner), because this one has been redesigned to mimic the look of an imaginary supercar, taking design cues from said car including all the grilles and shapes you'd expect to find on a Lamborghini cum Ferrari cum Aston Martin.