Green Flag: TAG Heuer’s Monaco Chronograph Racing Green Revs Its Engine

Launched in 1969, TAG Heuer’s Monaco has always intrinsically linked to the world of motorsport – from its name, which references the home of a famous Grand Prix, to its star turn on Steve McQueen’s wrist in the 1971 film Le Mans about the legendary French endurance race.
 

The unconventional model featured the first water-resistant square case and housed the revolutionary micro-rotor-based, self-winding Calibre 11 movement.
 

This week, the brand completes the second lap in its Racing Monaco series with the Monaco Chronograph Racing Green, a tribute to the historic livery color of British competitors. The limited-edition series debuted last year with the 39mm Monaco Racing Blue, an homage to the French livery color.

In the early days of auto racing, long before brand sponsors emblazoned cars with logos, the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) was founded in Paris in 1904 to oversee the sport. To easily distinguish the cars zooming by on the track, AIACR determined color rules based on the nationalities of the competitors: blue for France, red for Italy, green for Britain, and so on.

The first car noted to compete in the deep green paint that would become known as British Racing Green was in 1902 when the Napier 50, driven by Selwyn Edge, won the 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup, which was held in Ireland (at the time, this deep green color was referred to as “Shamrock Green”).
 

When sponsorship liveries came onto the Grand Prix scene in 1968, the mandated color system was phased out. Still, vestiges remain. Ferrari, for example, continues to race in vibrant Rosso Corsa (racing red), and Aston Martin competes in a proprietary shade of dark green it calls Aston Martin Racing Green.

Developed through a joint venture between Heuer, Hamilton, and Breitling in partnership with Buren for the base movement and Dubois-Depraz for the chronograph, the Calibre 11 made its debut the same year as the Monaco, 1969, as one of the first (and only) a few commercially available automatic chronographs.

Fun Fact: 1969 was a golden year for automatic chronographs that also saw the launch of Zenith’s El Primero and Seiko’s Calibre 6139.
 

Heuer also used the Calibre 11 to power the Autavia and Carrera, but the Calibre 11’s use in the brutalist square-shaped Monaco radically broke from classical design conventions. Consequently, Monaco did not find commercial success until well after its prominent product placement on McQueen’s wrist in the 1971 movie Le Mans.

In fact, it wasn’t until TAG Heuer relaunched Monaco in 1997, boosted by a marketing campaign playing up McQueen and the “King of Cool” angle, that it was clear that the Monaco’s time had come, only to endure.

Encased in a 39mm sandblasted grade-2 titanium chassis and displayed through the sapphire crystal caseback, the new TAG Heuer Monaco Chronograph Racing Green is powered by the brand’s automatic chronograph Calibre 11 (with the titanium section of the caseback is also engraved with the piece’s number in the series of 1,000).
 

Moreover, taking its design cues from historical British racing cars with the dial’s white and yellow accents, this new Monaco’s silver sunray-brushed dial is also evocative of the engine-turned dashboards of vintage sportscars from the 1920s and ‘30s.

Punctuating the airy dial are bold green opaline square-shaped counters: a permanent second counter at 3 o’clock and a minute chronograph counter at 9 o’clock. Eight applied, polished, and silvered hour markers are paired with 12 light green Super-LumiNova dot markers that enhance legibility after dark.
 

Next, a faceted baton marker at 12 o’clock and the chronograph’s central hand pop off the dial in bright yellow. Plus, the same “HEUER” emblem, prominent on McQueen’s striped Gulf racing suite in Le Mans, is featured on the dial. Also, staying true to the original for Monaco devotees, the crown is positioned at 9 o’clock.
 

Fun Fact: This December, one of six original Monaco props worn by McQueen in Le Mans is going on the block at Sotheby’s New York with a pre-auction estimate of $500,000 to $1 million.

The Racing Green edition is fitted with a matching green perforated calfskin strap secured with a titanium folding clasp bearing the vintage Heuer logo to complete the look.
 

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Available now, the new Monaco Chronograph Racing Green is limited to 1,000 pieces and priced at $9,300. For more information, visit the TAG Heuer website.