Watches Anniversary: celebrating 60 years of the Carrera

On 24 March 1962, in Florida, a Ferrari clinched the 12 Hours of Sebring. Undoubtedly a memorable event for motorsports enthusiasts, but this date would go down in the annals of watchmaking for a different reason. Two Mexican drivers who were forced to retire during the race, brothers Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez, met Jack, watching from the edge of the track. Sharing a common passion, they told him about the Carrera Panamericana, a rally that used to take place in their homeland. Held from 1950 to 1954, this 3,000-km race between the northern and southern borders of Mexico ran for just five editions before being cancelled due to its perilous nature.

Jack Heuer was so captivated by the word “carrera”, meaning both “road” and “race” in Spanish, that he decided to create a watch bearing the name. He developed a dial a little larger than those used at the time, equipped with a flange to increase legibility, and incorporated two further small counters at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock. He also added two easily accessible lateral push buttons. When the Heuer Carrera first appeared in 1963, it was an instant success. The genre-defining chronograph would go on to generate an entire collection of its own, evolving over time across multiple versions.

Six decades on, the time has come to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of an icon among icons. To launch this year’s celebrations, TAG Heuer has chosen to pay tribute to one of the most popular vintage Carreras, the reference 2447 SN, created in the late 1960s. Produced in a limited series of 600 copies, the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph 60th Anniversary is fashioned in 39-mm steel. While the panda dial sports the vintage logo of the brand, the see-through back of the case reveals a state-of-the-art automatic movement, the in-house calibre Heuer 02, whose precision and reliability are ingrained in the long Carrera tradition.