The watchmaker celebrates the 80th Monaco Grand Prix with the first skeleton dial in its Monaco collection.

The Monaco Grand Prix, along with the Indianapolis 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans, is considered one of the world’s most important automobile races. These three form the Triple Crown of Motorsport. Taking place this weekend, the Monaco event is celebrating its 80th Grand Prix competition. Naturally, since the TAG Heuer Monaco was introduced by the brand for the race in 1969, it’s bringing a few new models to celebrate the occasion.

The Heuer Monaco was a groundbreaking watch when it debuted. It was the first waterproof square watch powered by an automatic chronograph movement, the legendary Calibre 11. It has graced the wrists of renowned racers such as Jo Siffert and Steve McQueen and has become a watch icon for its contemporary design, which remains beloved today.  

The New Monaco Skeleton

The three new watches retain the angular features and short lugs of the handsome timepiece in a sandblasted grade 2 titanium case. Among them, one model comes in a black DLC coating. Titanium is lightweight, strong, corrosion-resistant, and often used in motor racing. Within a square frame, a circular dial sits inside the display with long hour indexes that join it to the square case middle.  

The circumference of the round dial is printed with a minute track. It’s completely skeletonised with the exception of two square chronograph registers that indicate the 30-minute and 12-hour totalisers at 3 and 9 o’clock, respectively. Just under it, a skeletonised date wheel in black finishing can be seen, with the current date visible against a silver background at 6 o’clock. The chronograph hands are in red, with luminous design elements on the hour indexes that look like a futuristic car dashboard counter.  

There are three dial variations – “Original Blue”, “Racing Red”, and “Turquoise”. The sandblasted blue version references the first Monaco watch made in 1969. The red one is, in fact, black, with red chronograph elements. The turquoise variant is the most striking, with turquoise-coloured indexes and chronograph rings on an all-black watch.  

The watches are sized at 39mm and are powered by the TH20 chronograph movement, a.k.a. the Heuer 02 calibre, with an 80-hour power reserve. To enhance these watches, TAG Heuer has used the same blue, red, and turquoise colour elements on the column wheel of the movements, which can be seen via the exhibition caseback. The skeletonised oscillating weight also features details of the movement in the same colour print.  

The three watches are paired with a bi-material rubber-and-leather strap in black or blue with a folding clasp and will be available for purchase from today onwards. Pricing is at CHF 10,500 for the Original Blue and Racing Red models, and the black DLC-coated Turquoise model is just CHF 500 more.  

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL