Heuer Carrera

As far as we're concerned, a vintage Heuer Carrera is about as cool a chronograph as money can buy. Featuring amazing vintage looks, true motorsports pedigree, and a design penned by the man himself, Mr. Jack Heuer, the Carrera got its name from the legendary cross-isthmus road race in Mexico known as La Carrera Panamericana. At least one other noteworthy international brand also borrowed this name for one of their products. (Hint: it has four wheels and the engine in the back).  Originally, the Carrera was powered by manually winding chronograph movements, but with the advent of the automatic chronograph in 1969, production began shifting towards automatic in a serious way. At that time, a conglomerate of watch brands headlined by Hamilton, Heuer and Breitling created an automatic chronograph movement, the likes of which the world had never before seen. The top-secret work conducted at the hands of world-class engineers was dubbed Project 99. Under the direction of Heuer, Project 99 resulted in some of the era's best looking watches: the Monaco, the Autavia and of course, the Carrera.  However, the costs associated with the Project 99 movement — dubbed the Calibre 11 for retail purposes — proved to be higher than many consumers could swallow, leading to the eventual release of a ‘budget’ variant known as the Calibre 15. This particular example, a Reference 1553S, utilizes just that type of movement, differentiated outwardly by the replacement of the 9:00 sub-register (a 12-hour counter on Calibre 11/12 models) with a subsidiary seconds register at 10:00.   Housed in a 38.5mm stainless steel case with an acrylic crystal, and a signed crown at 9:00, this Ref. 1553S from the 1970s features a multi-tone tritium dial with applied indices, a matching ‘sword’ handset, an outer tachymeter scale, a greyish-blue 30-second counter at 9 o’clock, a date window at 6 o’clock, and a running seconds counter at 10 o’clock. Funky as hell and paired to a black leather rallye strap with a signed, stainless steel pin buckle, it’s a standout example of 1970s industrial design, and a super cool watch, to boot.  Check it out today!