On March 3, 1969, at press conferences held simultaneously at the Intercontinental hotel in Geneva and the Pan Am Building in New York City, Breitling and Heuer announced their development of the world’s first automatic chronograph.  Breitling and Heuer had teamed with Hamilton-Buren and Dubois Depraz, with these two partners being responsible for the technical development of the new Chronomatic (Caliber 11) movement. 

Online since 2003, OnTheDash is the most comprehensive source of information about vintage Heuer chronographs, dashboard timers and other timepieces.  OnTheDash presents images of over 500 different models and executions of vintage Heuer chronographs, and scans of over 60 original Heuer catalogs covering the period 1935 through 1985. OnTheDash also includes registries of some of the rarest Heuer models,

By Rich Crosthwaite and Jeff Stein

Images by Paul Gavin/heuerworld.com

On March 10, 2016, TAG Heuer announced that it would re-issue the Autavia in 2017, with enthusiasts selecting the model to be re-issued from among 16 choices dated 1962 through 1969.  There is great interest in these “Early Autavias”, and at the request of TAG Heuer we present this detailed look at these models. 

The Autavia Chronograph

Heuer introduced the “Autavia” dashboard timer in 1933, with this 12-hour stopwatch designed to be mounted on the dashboard / panel of an automobile or airplane (thus the name is derived from the words “AUTomobile” and “AVIAtion”). Heuer introduced the Autavia chronograph in 1962, making it the first Heuer chronograph to have a model name on the dial;

We launched OnTheDash on February 12, 2003, with an email message to 80 recipients.  A few days ago, I received a message from one of these recipients, who I have been in touch with from time to time over the years.  In his message he reminisced about the good old days, shared some thoughts about the state of the current market,