The Heuer Carrera is a historically significant line for the ‘Heuer’ brand name and certainly a favorite amongst collectors. With the Heuer craze of late, while the Autavia may have stolen some of the spotlight, it is the Carrera that continues to go up in price with collectors still looking for rare examples. The appeal lies in the racing history of the Carrera and also its minimalistic good looks. In fact, the Heuer Carrera looks just as contemporary today as it did when it was first released in 1963. Furthermore, the Carrera was the first model line released by Jack Heuer when he took over and envisioned a new direction for the company, and with the Carrera and the Autavia later on, he certainly succeeded.
Part of the fun of collecting the Heuer Carrera is that there were many variations from panda dials to reverse panda dials, all-black dials and silver dials featuring a myriad of pulsometric/tachymetric/decimal scales, all slightly different and unique in their own way. This example here is perhaps one of the more unique variations- the Dato 45 Ref. 3147N.
While a majority of Carreras featured a traditional 2 or 3 subdial layout for its chronograph functions, the Dato 45 is unique in the sense that it has no running seconds, a singular 45 minute counter at 3 o’clock and most iconically, a date window at 9 o’clock. With a very unusual layout like this, at the time of its release, it was not very successful- making it a very rare watch today.
I do think that the Carrera is one of the most wearable watches today. At 35mm, it wears larger on the wrist due to its elongated, inward-turning lugs, giving off a very elegant feel. Aesthetically on the dial side, what you get is a very minimalistic chronograph, enhanced by the matte black dial and white rehaut. Combining these two aspects, this is a very, very attractive watch.
