Today, few watches are more iconic than the TAG Heuer Monaco, but it was initially a flop when it was introduced in 1969.
It wasn’t until Steve McQueen, the King of Cool, rocked one in the 1971 film Le Mans that the square racing chronograph took off. Seemingly overnight, it went from failure to phenomenon.
TAG Heuer acknowledged the film that made the watch in 2005 with the release of the first Monaco Gulf, a version of the 2000s iteration of the Monaco with a dial decorated like McQueen’s racing suit and Porsche 917K from Le Mans.
While this remains the most movie-accurate paint job of any Monaco Gulf release, the rest of the watch departed from the original design worn in the film.
This newest addition to the Gulf team matches every detail of the dial and hands to the original 1969 design worn by McQueen, aside from the blue color. It even uses the same Calibre 11 movement as the original Monaco, Heuer’s version of the first automatic chronograph ever produced.
Aside from the red stripe being replaced with Gulf’s orange, it is a spot-on homage to one of the greatest racing films of all time and everything racing watch fans could have hoped for.
