TAG Heuer Autavia watch review

Wrist Watch

First, a little history. TAG Heuer is a very prominent player in the "major league" of world watchmaking. The company was founded by Edouard Hoer in 1860 in the Swiss town of Saint-Imier. Subsequently, she moved to one of the capitals of the Swiss watch industry, the town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, where she is based today.

For a long time, the brand bore the name of its founder, and the abbreviation TAG appeared in 1985, when the company became part of the Techniques d'Avant Garde holding - "technical avant-garde". Everything is quite significant: all generations of Hoers, and even the current management (since 1999, TAG Heuer is a subsidiary of the LVMH group), focused on the highest technical level of watches, strived (successfully) to be at the forefront of the struggle for technical excellence - above all for accuracy ... Back in 1916, the Heuer Mikrograph chronograph appeared, capable of measuring time intervals with discreteness of 1 / 100th of a second - fantastic for that era!

On board and on the wrist

The Autavia family of watches appeared in 1933. It was a period of rapid development of automobiles and aviation, and land and air vehicles were in dire need of onboard time measurement. For 30 years, Heuer has been producing high-precision chronometers for aircraft and automobile dashboards. Subsequently, with the development of even more precise electronics, this direction lost its relevance, but TAG Heuer Autavia watches found their rightful place on the wrist - now as precise, reliable and stylish luxury wristwatches.

One of the manifestations of TAG Heuer's continued technical avant-gardism was the creation of a carbon fiber balance spring. This invention - and the balance / spiral assembly is key to the movement - is called the Isograph. Autavia models began to be equipped with such spirals, the word Isograph was present on the dials.

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True, then they nevertheless returned to the usual metal spirals, and the Isograph designation gave way to the word Automatic. At the same time, the mechanisms on which the Autavia watches work have chronometric accuracy: the daily deviation is a few seconds - with proper adjustment and constant wearing, even 1-2 seconds a day.

Swiss mechanical wrist watch TAG Heuer WBE5114.EB0173

Retro futurism

The design of modern TAG Heuer Autavia watches can be called “retro futuristic”. A very interesting model in a bronze case. True, in the 1930s, wristwatches were not made from this metal, but bronze itself has a vintage character: this is the first alloy in history created by talent and human hands and laid the foundation for metallurgy!

Nowadays Autavia are produced in the "pilot" style of the middle of the last century, but their dimensions are not 31-32 mm, as it was then, but 42 mm, which is typical of our time. Retro elements include a bezel that rotates in both directions with specific, pleasant clicks. It is immediately clear that the model is not a diver, but just a pilot's one: by turning the digitized 60-minute (or, if you will, 60-second) bezel scale, the timer function is realized in the simplest and most reliable way. You can even call it a quasi-chronograph! Noteworthy is the crown, large enough to operate it even with gloves - also in the spirit of classic "pilots"!

At the same time, the most advanced achievements of watchmaking are applied in the watches. On the gradient smoky brown dial, the numerals and xiphoid hands are covered with Ivory SuperLumiNova.

The case back is made of titanium. This protects the owner of the bronze watch from not too pleasant marks, which, especially in hot weather, can be left on the wrist by a slowly oxidizing alloy. TAG Heuer offers other Autavia variants, with stainless steel cases, different bracelets and different colors.

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