The TAG Heuer Carrera welcomes six new Extreme references this week that push the classic chronograph to its limits. The Carrera has a long, illustrious history, but it’s never shied away from more experimental forms. In 2016, TAG Heuer introduced Extreme Sport variations of the Carrera, expressing the design in, well, more extreme ways with the use of openworked dials and an integrated rubber strap. This also served as a perfect platform to integrate the brand’s HEUER02T tourbillon movement. This week, the Carrera Extreme Sport collection gets its first big update with four new references, and two new Tourbillon Extreme Sport references.
Right off the bat, let’s acknowledge that these Carrera variations aren’t for everyone, and may be downright upsetting to the purists among us, but they broaden the appeal of the platform to a new market, and create a stronger base for the future of the collection. Like the previous generation, the new Extreme Sport watches get skeletonized dial pieces that allow portions of the movement underneath to peek through. The dial gets a new design meant to improve legibility, though I’ll note that if you’re concerned about high legibility, these probably aren’t the watches for you.
These watches have a big personality, and the blue and red color options in particular lean into the madness. The date disc mounted under the dial plate matches the accent color of each watch, and is visible across much of the perimeter of the dial (it’s actually meant to be read via aperture at 6 o’clock, but it can get a bit lost in the weeds here). Dual registers dominate the rest of the dial, totalizing the minutes at 3 o’clock, and the hours at 9 o’clock. The running seconds hand is placed at 6 o’clock, but it doesn’t get a framed outline, pushing visual priority to the timing functions of the watch.
I appreciate the focus of the timing elements, given the watch’s history as an automotive and motorsport timing device. You won’t be mistaking this for a classic Carrera anytime soon, but it does carry the same thematic points forward into a new and very distinct representation. The more classic Carrera lives on in other, very interesting and effective ways within the TAG Heuer stable, and these Extreme Sport models push the concept into new creative directions. If anything it’s a creative exercise made available to the public, which is pretty cool.
The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Extreme Sport in red and blue are priced from CHF 8,000; in black from CHF 8,200; and in gold from CHF 12,000. The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon in titanium is priced from CHF 25,500; and in rose gold from CHF 32,000. TAG Heuer
