When TAG Heuer Made a Watch Just for McLaren F1 Owners

From Road & Track

Owning the world's fastest car is pretty cool. But when you're not safely ensconced in the center seat of the McLaren F1-say, if you ever have to exit the car and walk into a Whole Foods or board a megayacht-how are you going to show for it?

Just strap this hunk of metal to your wrist and you'll get to talk to the people you want to talk to-people in the know, who admire a fine watch and the fine automobile it comes with, who might ask about the McLaren F1 logos on the case of this Tag Heuer McLaren F1 Edition. "Why yes," you might get to answer. "I do have one. Want to see it?"

For exactly 64 people on the planet in 1993, that's exactly what happened.

TAG, Techniques d'Avant Garde, acquired Heuer in 1985, ten years before the 6000 series was introduced. It took that long for TAG Heuer to get back on its feet, reaffirm its connections with McLaren's Formula 1 team, and introduce a flagship watch.

This would be an ultra-premium watch powered by high-end automatic ETA movements, offered in platinum and Yellow Gold materials. The chronometer would be certified to COSC standards. There'd be quartz and ladies' versions, too. And with McLaren head Ron Dennis a shareholder in TAG Heuer, a McLaren F1-themed version in 1993 would make perfect sense.

Imagine you're a multi-gazillionaire in the halcyon pre-recession years of the early Nineties. You put down a deposit for a McLaren F1. You'd get two things: a set of golf clubs, which fit neatly in the car itself, and the TAG Heuer watch. Each watch had your individual chassis number printed right there, on the dial. The case features the F1 logo, emblazoned with "V12," neatly in the shape of the Heuer shield. Do you get a leather strap shaped like a tire tread? Of course you get a leather strap shaped like a tire tread. Did your McLaren F1 appreciate, across recessions and presidents alike? You bet. Did your golf clubs? Did your watch? Not so much.

Both McLaren and TAG Heuer expected to sell more F1s, of course. When F1 production ended, TAG Heuer wound up with a few extra McLaren watches-which were then modified to exclude the F1's chassis code, then sold or given away to employees of both McLaren and TAG Heuer.

There were other motorsports-themed 6000s, too: Mika Hakkinen, Ayrton Senna, and the 50th anniversary of Formula 1 itself saw their limited editions to coincide with TAG Heuer's best.

But the McLaren watch, at the very least, did come with a car. (Maybe they'll tell you that it was the other way around. Don't believe it.) What's more, one of these 64 owners was a young Elon Musk. We wonder if he still has his original Six.

Images via Calibre 11