New Gear: Carrera Day Date Calibre 16

Since its release back in 2008, the Carrera Day-Date Calibre 16 has become one of the most popular watches in the TAG Heuer range: bigger, bolder and more intricately designed than most of the Carrera models, the Day-Date model is the Alpha Male of the Carrera pack.



TAG Heuer offer the combination Day-Date feature on several Calibre 16 watches, (The Aquaracer and- in the past- the Link) but typically the only change between the “Date” and “Day-Date” model is the larger date window and additional functionality implied by the name. As someone who rarely uses the date function and never uses the day function (sure, I forget the date occasionally, but rarely which day of the week it is), it’s not the functionality of this watch that makes it interesting to me- it’s the design.




The design of the Day-Date Carrera is distinctly different to the Calibre 16 Date Carrera (below)- sure the case design is the same, but whether it be the chronograph pushers, the crown, the dial or the hands, almost every aspect of the design has been changed.



Instead of thinking of the Day-Date as being a Carrera Chronograph with a Day function, the best way to think of the watch is that it’s an affordable Carrera 360.



As you can see from the photo above, the Carrera Day-Date borrows its looks from the 2006 Carrera Calibre 360, the limited edition Carrera range launched to showcase the Calibre 360 1/ 100th second movement.

Both watches use the over-size 43mm case- 2mm larger than the standard Carrera and a massive 20% larger than the 36mm Carrera re-edition from 1996. As well as having a larger case, both watches place the minute and seconds hash-marks on an angled inner-bezel, freeing up more room on the dial for the signature applied minute markers, set out in 5-minute increments. Look carefully and you’ll see that both watches also use the same small triangles on the inner bezel to mark each 5-minute increment.

The other design flourish borrowed from the Carrera 360 is the double-crown, a look that the Carrera 360 passed on to other watches in the TAG Heuer range, including the Grand Carrera and Monaco V4.



Overall the design of the watch works very well- the additional detailed touches and applied markers give the watch a more 3D, premium look. The question for people looking to buy a Carrera will be whether they like this design, or prefer the more understated Date-only Chronograph.



The Day-Date Carrera is available in three dial colours- white, black and brown. Each of these models comes with either a steel bracelet, or a leather crocodile strap (black leather for the white and black dial and brown leather for the brown dial).



The Brown and Black dial watches have an external tachy bezel that matches the dial colour, while the white dial watch gets a stainless steel bezel.



This watch was the basis for the 2009 Singapore Grand Prix Carrera, which replaces the Red highlights with Green and replaces the plain titanium bezel with a black bezel.



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