TAG Heuer Monza: One More Version!

Return of the legendary chronograph.

TAG Heuer's revived Monza was one of the most interesting novelties at the fourth edition of LVMH Watch Week in Singapore. The event wasn't actually spread out over a full week, but the three-day event went offline for the first time following two successive years online.

The Monza is one of the company's most iconic models with a motorsports connection, which forms part of a legendary trio together with Carrera and Monaco watches.

The model debuted later than its two celebrated colleagues in 1976. It’s also named after a famous race — the circuit for the F1 Italian Grand Prix to be more precise.

It was a race at the Monza Circuit a year earlier in 1975 that saw Niki Lauda become the Formula One World Drivers' Champion, propelling the Ferrari team to the fore at the time when Heuer was a close partner as their supplier of timekeeping devices.

The designers at Heuer decided to follow the square Monaco and round Carrera with a cushion-shaped Monza. But the defining feature of the original Monza was its use of a black PVD coating for its case to house the automatic

Caliber 15 chronograph movement. The black livery was frequently stripped back on later reincarnations, which only held onto the cushion-shaped case, black dial and chronograph function.

The model was sold up until the early 1980s, then TAG Heuer relaunched the model in the 2000s.This year, TAG Heuer is offering a fresh take on the Monza. The model still has the same recognizable case, but too many details have been changed.

Firstly, the case's actual silhouette with its sharpened edges is closer to later Monza editions. Secondly, the case is made of carbon. The connection with motorsports has been preserved by using more modern materials but the simplicity of the first Ref. 150.501 is a thing of the past.

Nevertheless, the winding crown and chronograph pushers are still made of steel with a black DLC-coating. The tachymeter scale and pulsometer have survived, but now they have an openworked dial as a backdrop with blue fumé inserts for counters.

The new Monza has two of these: a 30-minute chronograph counter at 3 o'clock and small seconds at 6 o'clock. The engine powering this watch is the Heuer 02 with Flyback function, which had previously been unavailable in this series of chronographs. Its high timekeeping precision is COSC-certified.