TAG Heuer are revealing a new take on the modern Carrera design through a collaboration with Japanese motorsport and lifestyle brand, Team Ikuzawa, with a little help from Bamford Watch Department. The watch is officially the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Team Ikuzawa, and it brings the clothing brand’s distinctive flair to the famous chronograph through a stark white and red design that goes beyond a mere colorway. This collaboration offers a unique vision of the modern Carrera that ditches the running seconds hand entirely, and completely re-thinks the chapter ring at the dial’s perimeter, shifting the priority altogether toward a more racing-centric vision.
TAG Heuer has a well known history around automotive racing, from F1 and endurance racer Jo Siffert putting the Autavia on the map, to the funding the development of a bonkers engine from Porsche that would power McLaren’s world champion F1 car through the ‘80s. The brand is also a common sight around the modern F1 paddock thanks to LVMH’s status as the primary partner of the sport as of 2025, and TAG Heuer’s continued partnership with the Oracle Red Bull Racing team, which has brought us some pretty cool collabs of its own in recent years.
What may be less familiar to you is the racing heritage of Team Ikuzawa. The brand is named for racing legend, Tetsu Ikuzawa, who was the first Japanese driver to successfully compete in European racing leagues, from Formula 3 and Formula 2, as well as endurance racing, competing in the 1973 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Sigma Automotive (now SARD) in a rotary powered Sigma MC73. Oh, and he did a stint as a Porsche factory driver, and would drive alongside teammate Jo Siffert in 1968.
Ikuzawa would informally retire from racing by 1978, and go on to form i&i Racing Development to field cars in the All-Japan Formula Two Championship, as well as the All-Japan Endurance Championship (JSPC) that would lay the groundwork for the iconic Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (known as JGTC, which is now called Super GT), hosting Japanese sports car racing that delivered some of the all-time greats, from the Castrol TOM’s Supra, to the Takata Dome NSX, to the all conquering GT-R (from R32, R33, and R34). Through it all, Ikuzawa would continue to make appearances in endurance races such as Le Mans, with his last official entry coming at 2000 Nürburgring 24 Hours in a Spoon Sports prepared Honda S2000.
Today, Team Ikuzawa is run by Tetsu’s daughter, Mai, who has transformed the name into a lifestyle and fashion brand celebrating the automotive history and culture that her father helped to shape. The style picks up on the red-crowned crane that appeared on many of Tetsu’s race cars as a symbol of Japan. The high contrast red and white has been retained throughout the stylings of Team Ikuzawa, and provides the basis for the character found in the Carrera.
This brings us to the latest collaboration between Team Ikuzawa and TAG Heuer and Bamford Watch Department, which goes beyond just a slick color scheme, but also changes up the layout of the dial in a meaningful way. First and foremost, as mentioned, the running seconds has been removed from the six o’clock position, leaving just the date aperture and the Team Ikuzawa mark at the bottom of the dial. The most distinctive feature of the dial is the minute totalizer, which takes on a new design featuring red radial blocks with open circles containing the numerals. But what I really love about this concept is the perimeter of the dial.
The traditional hour markers have been removed in favor of a seconds index that prioritizes the timing seconds hand. This places an obvious focus on the racing heritage of the Carrera chronograph, and feels truly unique in the context of the modern collection. The rehaut breaks the minute down even further and creates some depth from the textured dial center.
This approach underscores TAG Heuer’s willingness to push the Carrera design outside of its comfort zone in service to a creative vision of the collaborator. We’ve seen it before with the fragment Carrera released last year, and it’s made TAG Heuer something of a curator of creative partners.
The rest of the watch is built using the 39mm Carrera frame housing TAG Heuer’s automatic caliber TH20-10. Just 150 examples of this watch will be produced, each shipping with a steel bracelet, and a pair of red and white fabric options. Pricing is set at $10,500. TAG Heuer
Leave a Reply