TAG Heuer

Autavia Watches

Ever since the establishment of the original Heuer company in 1860, TAG Heuer watches have been renowned for its high precision. The name Heuer Autavia was brought by the brand in 1933. The first Heuer Autavia is a stopwatch that addressed the need for precision for racers and pilots.

You can see the close relationship between Heuer and motorsports from the name. “AUT” refers to ‘Automobile’, while “AVIA” was the short of ‘Aviation’. In 1962, Jack Heuer reintroduced this concept with the first Autavia Chronograph to reinforce their understanding of accuracy. Right from the very moment it was introduced, the watch became a classic that represents the value of the brand. Every new Autavia watch is the combination of Heuer’s advanced technology and unique design capabilities of the company. 

The legendary Swiss watch company TAG Heuer, originally the Heuer, forayed into the watchmaking industry in 1860. The company started its entry into the watch market with pocket watches and extended to chronographs in a few years. 

Renowned for its technical innovations, the Heuer created masterpieces and improvised their innovations. They patented an advanced winding system that redefined the Swiss watchmaking tradition. In 1882, they patented the first-ever Heuer chronograph in 1882. 

Later in 1887, they patented their oscillating pinion movement, which was an amazing innovation for that era. It posted itself a milestone for the technological journey of their mechanical chronographs.

TAG Heuer watchmaking style kept evolving. There was an increased demand for precision around the 20th century in almost all industries especially sports events. And TAG Heuer succeeded to meet this tough demand with critical technological innovations for decades.

They were not only perfecting their watchmaking capabilities, but also enhancing their understanding of the needs of consumers. The aviation, as well as the automobile segment, needed maximum accuracy and precision, and Tag Heuer was able to provide them exactly that.

The TAG Heuer Autavia was originally released in 1933. It is one of the longest-running TAG Heuer watch collections at present. Its watches are aimed for high precision to meet the demand of wearers and have undergone many important additions and modifications. 

The very first Autavia watch introduced was a stopwatch equipped with a Valjoux movement. It was designed to meet the precision requirements of that era. The watch featured a stainless steel case with a black and white basic design using a luminous material. The bracelet strap of the reliable Autavia stopwatch was the key highlight to stand out.

Launch of Autavia Chronograph

Taking the name from the meaningful stopwatch released, the Heuer’s first chronograph was introduced as the Heuer Autavia Chronograph in 1962. 

Cases of these watches featured a rotating bezel with a tachometer scale. Over the next two decades, Heuer had offered the Autavia watch in over 80 versions. The early Heuer Autavia Chronographs are usually classified into three main generations by the collectors.

First Generation of Heuer Autavia

The first generation was considered to start in 1962. The first Autavia Chronograph was equipped with a classic 38 mm stainless steel case with a simple black dial. The dial featured the luminescent hour markers, oversized white sub-dials and dauphine hands.

From 1966 onwards, the Autavia models produced had reduced the size of the white sub-dials while maintaining the same case and bezel. Besides, the dauphine hands were replaced by Heuer standard hour markers and hands. All these Autavia models of this period housed the Valjoux hand-wound chronograph movements.

Second Generation of Heuer Autavia

In 1968, the Heuer company introduced the second generation of the Autavia watches with a totally new design. They featured larger bezels and new lugs with square edges. These models were powered by the Valjoux 7730/7732 movements, which were modified from its famous ETA Valjoux 7750 movement.

Third Generation of Heuer Autavia

The third generation of the Heuer Autavia was launched in 1969 at Baselworld. It featured Heuer’s revolutionary movement at the time, the Chronomatic Calibre 11.

Although the debate is still raged, Chronomatic was considered as the very first automatic chronograph movement available to the public in the world. It was the masterpiece created from the partnership of Heuer with Breitling, Dubois Depraz and Buren.

With Heuer and Breitling were the main investors funding the project, the modular automatic chronograph was built on a Buren base movement with a chronograph module developed by Dubois Depraz. The chronograph module was attached to the watch movement by three screws. The movement offered a power reserve up to 42 hours with beating at 19,800 vibrations per hour.

Until the acquisition of the Heuer by TAG, a handful of Autavia model were extremely successful that remained some of the most admired collector's chronographs to the day. 

In 2003, TAG Heuer put up the revival of the classic Heuer collection. The brand redefined the Autavia watch with the new-generation Caliber 11. It brought up a huge hit among the collectors of that time. The renowned Autavia along with the advanced calibre, the package itself attracted more Heuer lovers then ever. 

At this point, the company worked on releasing a new addition to their series. The new models wore the ‘TAG Heuer’ logo marking rather than ‘Heuer’. Instead of being a remake of a vintage model, the re-editions were a modern interpretation of the 1970s classic Autavia.

Further in Baselworld 2017, TAG Heuer Autavia special edition was released to celebrate its 55th anniversary. The watch featured updated functions and a new Heuer-02 calibre proprietary chronograph movement. The brand has kept improvising the designs and the overall functions for the collection.

In 2019, they released the 3-hand TAG Heuer Autavia watch. It was the first-ever non-chronograph Autavia watch. With this, they tried to promote the Autavia as an aviation watch rather than a purely motorsport watch collection.

The design of the new Autavia Isograph model was well-received among watch lovers. The watch is equipped with a fixed bezel instead of the rotating bezel, which was the norm for many sports watches nowadays. The watch came in two color options: accents of orange and blue. 

Buy a TAG Heuer Autavia Watch Now

One of the main reasons you should add a TAG Heuer Autavia watch to your collection is its classic design and practicality. The remarkable in-house movements is another reason why it is worth it for you to own it. The Autavia watches are the true beauty teeming with the latest in technology for the modern watch enthusiast.