The Heuer Carrera in the 1980s
The Eighties were a decisive decade for the future of Heuer: the TAG corporate group promised the future of their brand. Heuer became TAG Heuer along with the Carrera chronograph was reborn with a new motion.
The Quartz Crisis strongly changed the watchmaking industry in late Seventies and early Eighties. Cheap digital watches in the Far East inundated the world's markets. Jack Heuer had acknowledged the tendency toward quartz and electronic equipment at an early date and successfully deployed these new technologies in timekeepers for auto races. One of his most prosperous creations was the Heuer Chronosplit, a quartz wristwatch with an integrated stopwatch function. A quartz version of this Carrera also came out there in 1978. The Carrera-Twin series united conventional hands for the normal time daily and LCD indicators for the date and the stopwatch. The quartz-powered Carrera was also available in a purely three-handed version. The conventional new from Bienne was nonetheless hard pressed to cope with the twin challenges posed with a strong Swiss franc and inexpensive competition. Jack Heuer was forced to sell his firm in 1982. The guy who had invented icons like the Heuer Carrera and the Heuer Monaco, who'd co-invented the automatic chronograph and whose revolutionary marketing in motorsport had changed Heuer into the global brand we understand today lost the company that he had inherited from his forebears. Eighty percent of the shares were shot by the Piaget Family and another ten percent went into the Swiss movement maker Nouvelle Lémania, which thus became the second-largest shareholder.
The Carrera Chronograph was restored again between 1983 and 1985, but the brand's own Caliber 11 and its successors were no more offered. The Carrera was equipped with all the Lemania 5100, a movement produced by the label's new co-owner. The Lemania Carrera was available with a stainless steel case (either with or without a coating of black PVD) and in a gold version. The minute-hand, which was shaped like an airplane, is a distinguishing feature of watches encasing this self-winding movement. Despite several openings (e.g. plastic was utilized in the Lemania 5100 along with also the motion per se was by no means an aesthetic masterpiece), this caliber is still regarded today as an outstanding automatic chronograph movement. Not only did it operate exactly, it was also lightweight, strong and immune to centrifugal forces: these virtues made it widely popular amongst military men and aviators around the globe. Good legibility likewise ranked among the strong points of this Lemania 5100 Carrera. With this in mind, it comes as no real surprise to learn the Lemania Carrera is eagerly sought by contemporary collectors.
In 1984, Yves Piaget found in Akram Ojjeh, the president of the Saudi Arabian corporate team TAG (Techniques d'Avant-Garde), a new buyer who had both the fire and the fiscal wherewithal to guarantee a bright future for the Heuer brand. Among the many commonalties that TAG shared with Jack Heuer were a savvy instinct for its zeitgeist and a commitment to motorsport. TAG served as a host of the Williams Formula One racing stable in 1982. Together with Porsche, an engine has been developed for McLaren. The group was also active in the luxury business and in state-of-the-art technology. After TAG purchased 52 percent of Heuer's stocks from Piaget and Lemania at 1985, Heuer became TAG Heuer. The new management changed the version coverage. The new directorship under Christian Viros sharpened TAG Heuer's profile as a producer of trendy watches. These new timepieces had a more muscular look with broader cases and broader bezels. Wholly new and emphatically sporty versions were established: these comprised the Formula 1 and the S/el. The abbreviation together with the forward slash stands for "Sportiness" and "elegance." The Heuer 2000, that was created by Eddy Schöpfer, was likewise lasted. And quartz calibers were rediscovered to augment mechanical motions.
Heuer became TAG Heuer from the mid 1980s. TAG and Heuer match well together, and not solely because both companies were busy in motorsport. The new TAG Heuer emblem was soon an integral part of Formula One: here, by way of example, on Ayrton Senna's McLaren using Honda engine and on Senna's overalls (below).
A new zeitgeist at the end of the 1980s proved beneficial for TAG Heuer. This was an era when status symbols were gaining favor, also one of young people. Movies like "Wall Street" (1987) and "Cocktail" (1988) celebrated the fantasy of fast cash and, most importantly, what those quick bucks can purchase. The dream-come-true profession within this epoch? Wall Street banker! The Western market economy also triumphed in international politics. There were plenty of reasons to enjoy all this abundance and to showcase what one had -- also on one's wrist.
From the mid 1990s, TAG Heuer's earnings had increased by a factor of six. The time had come to strengthen the brand's identity once again. A retrospective gaze in the business's history discovered plenty of possible inspirations. The yield of this Carrera has been imminent.