Heuer Silverstone
There must have been few jobs around in the 1960s and
1970s that were easier than the one that involved being
responsible for naming new Heuer sports watches. Step one –
realise that Heuer has associations with motorsport. Step
two – think of a suitably famous European racetrack. Step
three – name watch after racetrack. Step four – repeat as
necessary. Step five – retire to restaurant for three
Martini lunch.
This actually became quite a successful marketing ploy,
though, emphasising the brand’s connections with a glamorous
sport, which helped to shift units and, with the Monaco and
Monza, at least, unwittingly providing watches for its
descendant - Tag Heuer - to reissue and reinvent, some years
later, for a post modern client base eager to own
recreations of the brand’s iconic timepieces.
Which leads us to a lesser known variant of this theme:
the Heuer Silverstone, which was named after the iconic
British race circuit, and which has earned its place on The
List by virtue of its sleek 1970s futurist aesthetics and
its rarity (especially in our favoured blue dial form, as
worn by the Swiss Formula One driver, Clay Regazzoni)
meaning that ownership is generally restricted to those with
the good taste and time to undertake the task of seeking one
out.
Launched in 1974, the Silverstone was fitted with Heuer’s
calibre 12 automatic movement with 17 jewels, which was a
development of the calibre 11 that had been used in the
original Monaco some years earlier. The main improvements
over the earlier movement were a superior winding system and
a faster beat rate of 21,600 bph.
The overall design of the Silverstone falls somewhere
between the flamboyance of the Monaco and the more austere,
classical appearance of the Carrera, enabling it to be one
of the few sports watches from Heuer that, in blue dial form
at least, can be worn with both casual and formal clothes
without seeming incongruous.
The case itself is fairly large, especially for a watch
of this era, at 42 mm excluding the crown, but the smooth
lines and highly polished finish hide its bulk well, and it
is not overpowering on the wrist, or particularly heavy. The
crown is sited, unusually, on the left hand side of the
watch; a fact that Heuer’s marketing department seized upon,
stating in promotional literature that it was a reminder
that ‘this chronograph never needs winding’. The truth was
somewhat more prosaic, though: the placement of the crown
was a technical necessity related to the modular nature of
the chronograph.
The Silverstone’s low profile in the popular consciousness,
which has, no doubt, partly been a consequence of Tag
Heuer’s seeming reluctance to manufacture a reissue, means
not only that values are lower than equivalent Monacos, but
also that they have a degree of exclusivity that is rare in
mass produced watches. There can be few other timepieces
that can offer the same combination of rarity, versatility
and thoroughbred good looks at this price, so we can only
advise that you seek one out now before the market realises
that they are significantly undervalued.
