Tag Heuer is well-known for its uniqueness and in manufacturing watches built for the most rugged occasions in the sporting world, particularly on the race track and the sea. The brand also holds a reputation for creating all-weather, reliable, and accurate movements consistent with the superiority of the Swiss watchmaking tradition.
The Tag Heuer Aquaracer is easily one of the brand’s most recognizable models. It is designed to cater to and meet the highest requirements in watches used by sea lovers, including surfers, swimmers, and deep divers. Introduced in 1978, the Aquaracer immediately established itself as a force to reckon with in the diver’s watch segment. The inaugural Heuer with ref. 844 offered an impressive dial design with a 24-hour scale. It featured lume-filled hour markers and was installed with a rotating bezel equipped with a crystal clear minute scale, created with accurate timing dives in mind.
About four decades later, Tag Heuer introduced a new model of the Aquaracer Professional 300. It continues the legacy of its predecessor that stands as a high-geared yet fashionable and luxurious tool watch.
LOOK: The New Aquaracer Professional 300 From Tag Heuer
The latest generation of the Tag Heuer Aquaracer lineup is daring, luxurious, practical, and versatile. It set a new standard for ergonomic, high-performance mechanical watches by giving the original design a significant improvement while anchoring the upgrades from the six well-known features of the Aquaracer.
Bezel
Tag Heuer started with the most significant aspect of the watch’s external features: its 12-sided unidirectional rotating bezel, which the brand refined by integrating a scratch-resistant ceramic insert across the collection. The grooves on each of the 12 facets provide a better grip for the bezel. Meanwhile, the bezel’s internal tooth profile was redesigned in a way that the rotating mechanism looks sleeker and is easier to set.
Movement
Spanning four 40mm references, three 36mm models, and one 43mm limited edition that’s been inspired by a vintage 1978 Heuer diver, the lineup is put in motion by the in-house manufacture Calibre 5—a highly-reliable Swiss-made automatic mechanical movement that features hour, minute, and seconds hands and a date which is now located at the 6 o’clock position. Every model has a solid caseback and water resistance of up to 300m.
All models are equipped with sapphire crystal glass, which is enhanced to include a magnifier over the date aperture at 6 o’clock. This is designed for the readability of the date from a wider angle of view. The latest model has a more distinct sword-shaped hour hand and a narrower minute hand to create a more recognizable difference between the two hands even in poor light conditions.
Bracelet
The new Aquaracer is affixed to a consolidated metal bracelet design, equipped with a revolutionary fine adjustment system that can lengthen or shorten the metal strap’s length by up to 1.5cm. This allows for the resizing of the bracelet accordingly without taking the watch off.
Finding the Right Aquaracer For You
As said above, the new line of TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300 is available in eight references, one of which is a limited edition. Each is equipped with a unidirectional rotating bezel with a ceramic insert and a carved minute scale.
The Tag Heuer Aquaracer is manufactured using stainless steel for corrosion resistance and is available in black, blue, or silver dials. Meanwhile, the 43mm limited-edition variant sports a high-tech matte Grade 2 titanium, a green bezel insert with a white triangle at 12 o’clock filled with blue Super-LumiNova.
The 40mm models are fitted with the signature design cues from the outgoing Aquaracer, specifically, the dial’s engraved horizontal lines. Meanwhile, the dials on the 36mm models are engraved with a wave pattern which we first saw in 2019. In particular, the blue 36mm model also has eight diamond hour markers and polished central bracelet links.
Tag Heuer: Innovations Through the Years
Tag Heuer’s illustrious history can be traced back in 1860 to the then-20-year-old Edouard Heuer. He opened a modest workshop in Saint-Imier, Switzerland, where he would eventually invent the oscillating pinion. It was an invention that would later be adopted in many succeeding chronographs.
Throughout its history, Heuer, which was later named Tag Heuer, has been associated with chronographs and timers. In 1911, Heuer invented the Time of Trip, an onboard chronograph for installation within the instrument panels of cars and aircraft. The device was used to indicate the span of a journey.
Heuer introduced the Solunar in 1949 after a requisition from Abercrombie & Fitch for a watch capable of indicating the tides. Jack Heuer, who was only 15 at the time, sought his physics teacher’s assistance, Dr. Heinz Schlit, who performed all of the necessary calculations for the watch to materialize.
In 1963, Jack Heuer designed the Carrera chronograph, named after the hazardous Carrera Panamericana car race of the 1950s. The watch was the first timepiece designed by Jack and featured a remarkably clean and legible display.
Heuer decided to venture into creating the first self-winding chronograph. A significant undertaking for the company. Unfortunately, the projected high cost to create this movement prevented him from achieving this on their own, thus Jack Heuer approached Willy Breitling and they agreed to share the development cost between the two companies. Project 99 was the movement’s codename and later to be named Calibre 11 when introduced in 1969.
Jack Heuer released the Monaco model to somehow differentiate the Heuer watches from Breitling timepieces running on the same Calibre 11 movement. During the 70s, the company partnered with Ferrari both as a sponsor and official timekeeper. In 1973, Heuer released the Microsplit, the world’s pioneer in quartz pocket-sized sports timer, accurate to 1/100th of a second.
Takeaway
Today, Tag Heuer boasts an extensive range of models including the Formula One, Aquaracer, Link, and Silverstone as well as the Carrera and Monaco. Joining the ranks of these models are the highly innovative Aquaracers that certainly commands a great deal of respect from watch enthusiasts worldwide.
What are your thoughts about the new Aquaracer Professional 300? Let us know by leaving a comment.
