Caliber 1887

WORLDTEMPUS - December 8, 2009

Elizabeth Doerr


Caliber 1887's name alludes to the year Edouard Heuer received a patent for the vibrating pinion that was to become the hallmark of Heuer's chronographs. It is no secret that TAG Heuer—like most of the rest of the Swiss watchmaking industry, the automobile industry, and even the fashion industry—buys in its technology. In fact, only five movements in the prestigious brand's more than 150-year history have been fully assembled in-house to this day.

This has never decreased fans' love of the sporty brand; in fact it may well be seen as a quality hallmark that TAG Heuer chooses to use only reliable, tried-and-tested technology rather than develop new calibers akin to reinventing the wheel, which in the end would be far less stable than the ETA bases TAG Heuer chiefly outfits its timepieces with.

Therefore, in producing Caliber 1887, TAG Heuer continues to follow the same simple philosophy: go to the best suppliers to get the best quality at the best price.

Intellectual property

Caliber 1887's base is Seiko Caliber TC78, intellectual property purchased in 2006 when reliable chronograph calibers could not be found in Switzerland in quantities necessitated by TAG Heuer. The La Chaux-de-Fonds-based brand purchased the exclusive rights to produce this movement in Europe. And though the design of the movement remains the same to ensure reliability and precision, TAG Heuer now manufactures the components needed to achieve the Swiss Made label and accommodate desired features, and has also increased the quality of the finishing. The base plate, bridges, and rotor are manufactured at TAG Heuer's industrial facility Cortech in Cornol, where a large percentage of the brand's cases are manufactured. It also now accommodates a specialized workshop. The oscillating subassembly comprising the balance spring, pallets, and escape wheel are pure Nivarox, the Swatch Group-owned specialist for escapement parts. And the entire assembly is completed by 45 new employees in TAG Heuer's own factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a semi-automated, dust-free workshop created in 2008 when the company expanded its main site by 30% by adding a fourth building. TAG Heuer invested about 25 million Swiss francs and three years to expand its own capabilities to accommodate the industrialization of this new caliber, which is slated for production of about 20,000 pieces in 2010.

Origins

Habitually and for various reasons, the western world is used to looking down on products originating in Asia — a prejudice TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Christophe Babin apparently does not wholly agree with. “Caliber TC78 is known as extremely well designed, dependable, versatile, upgradable, and robust. It is therefore an ideal base for refining details and gaining precision, notably in integrating an escapement,” he explains.

Which leaves us with just one question: TAG Heuer and Seiko each possess a hallmark chronograph element—the vibrating pinion and the Magic Lever—which respectively act as signatures in movement design. Françoise Bezzola, head of TAG Heuer's communication, clears up the mystery: “The pinion already existed in Caliber TC78. This is another of the reasons why we selected this movement, apart from its accuracy [and reliability]. Since the oscillating pinion is a Heuer invention, it made sense to have it in the 1887. As far as [Seiko's] Magic Lever is concerned, we kept it in our movement. This component allows the technology to gain 30 percent more energy when winding the watch, therefore it was worth keeping.”