How do you follow up an accidental icon? Fifty years ago, Heuer built a watch on the cheap and inadvertently created a cult classic. Now, to mark the anniversary, TAG Heuer have brought the Monza home with the new Monza Flyback Chronograph 50th anniversary edition which launches ahead of the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix at the circuit that gave it its name. We got hands-on with the new watch alongside TAG Heuer Heritage Director Nicholas Biebuyck to see how it stacks up.
First, that origin story, because it’s a good one. When Niki Lauda took the 1975 drivers’ and constructors’ titles for Ferrari – the Scuderia’s first since John Surtees in 1964 – Heuer wanted to create a celebration piece. The trouble was the quartz crisis was starting to bite. So, as Biebuyck cheerfully admits, they built an economy model: the case of the existing Carrera 1153, a flat dial with no applied markers and a black coating so it could be made from base metal. It even launched under a different name, Modena, after Ferrari’s hometown. However, someone pointed out that Ferrari were feuding with the municipality and that Modena mostly means balsamic vinegar to the rest of the world. Monza it became, and Monza it stayed, outliving the Ferrari deal itself and running through the 1980s.
The new watch inverts that story of being the economy model completely. It now sits above the Monaco in the range, and where the original was a budget special, this is a 42mm case of forged carbon. The marbled, motorsport-grade composite that makes every example visually unique and keeps it feather-light on the wrist. It uses the Monza’s distinctive cushion shape, carried over from the contemporary model introduced in 2023.
Inside is TAG Heuer’s in-house Calibre TH20-12, the flyback version of the movement first seen in that skeletonised carbon Monza. It’s COSC-certified with an 80-hour power reserve and a date window at 9 o’clock. Plus, it’s a flyback, meaning the chrono function can be stopped, reset and restarted with a single pusher press. Biebuyck was candid that a split-seconds was ruled out on cost, but a flyback is still a genuinely useful motorsport function for timing consecutive laps, and it justifies the step up from the Monaco.
The dial is where the anniversary aspect of the launch comes into focus. It’s black-on-black in the best Monza tradition: matte black chronograph counters set against the gloss of the main dial for legibility, with carefully placed red accents recalling the collection’s historic colour codes. Rhodium-plated hour and minute hands carry white Super-LumiNova. The chronograph minute counter sits at 3 o’clock with running seconds at 6, and the flange packs in both a tachymeter and a pulsometer scale – a nod to the original since the 1976 version offered both. A black perforated calfskin strap with red stitching completes the racing-glove look.
Stylistically, where 2023’s openworked carbon piece was the radical take, this is the classical one that sits far closer to the 1976 original. Although, when Biebuyck brings out an archival original to compare side by side, it’s clear that the new watch simply wears better. Original Monzas are small in diameter yet surprisingly thick, because the Calibre 11 inside was a modular stack – a Buren micro-rotor base with a Dubois Dépraz chronograph module on top. That construction, not ergonomics, is why the crown sat on the left; the ‘easier pusher access’ line was marketing invented after the fact, much like Porsche claiming its left-mounted ignition was a Le Mans quick-start trick. The integrated TH20-12 has no such constraints, and the result feels properly proportioned in a way the original never quite managed.
Perhaps the most interesting thing Biebuyck told us, though, was that the Monza still hasn’t found its place. It keeps returning ‘in fits and starts’, in his words, and the brand will be looking closely at reimagining it ‘soonish’ – with a similar hint dropped about the long-dormant Silverstone. That suggests this anniversary edition – 500 pieces, launched where it all started – is a bridge to something bigger. If so, it’s a very good bridge: the best-proportioned Monza yet, a proper complication, and the rare heritage piece whose backstory is told with actual honesty.
Not bad for what started life as an economy model. At time of writing, an official price for the TAG Heuer Monza Flyback Chronograph 50th Anniversary hasn’t been announced, but I would expect it to be similar to the 2023 skeletonised version, which was £11,450.
Price and Specs:
More details at TAG Heuer.
