LVMH Watch Week: The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon Purple Dial, First Look, Live Photos

In 2023, for the 60th anniversary of the Carrera chronograph, TAG Heuer launched a new flagship model in the collection – the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon, one of the most complicated Carrera chronographs ever made. TAG Heuer had produced some pretty exotic high frequency chronographs in the past, including the 2012 Mikrogirder 2000, which could measure time intervals as small as 1/2000/second, but the 2023 Carrera chrono tourbillon was the first time TAG had put a tourbillon regulator in a Carrera chronograph. Since then there have been several additions to the line, both regular production and limited editions, including last November’s Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon X Senna, and with LVMH now a sponsor of Formula 1 and TAG Heuer specifically named the F1 Official Timekeeper, it seems likely we’ll see continued new introductions over the rest of 2025.

For LVMH Watch Week, TAG Heuer has announced a new version of the Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon and we were able to get a first look, in the metal, with the new model.

The new dial has a gradient going from a deeply saturated purple at the center of the dial, to almost black at the dial edge. Purple is a color with a long rich history as a symbol of royalty (the Romans had sumptuary laws which forbade anyone but the Emperor from wearing a full purple toga; the heir to the throne was said to have been “born in the purple”). The effect’s pretty subtle despite the intensity of the color – the thought of a Carrera chronograph with a purple dial might seem a little counterintuitive for a family of watches generally considered purposeful sports timepieces with a heritage of pit lane visibility, but I think it works well here as a sign of the elevated horological character of the watch.

The case is 42mm x 14.33mm – about par for the course for a sports chronograph, and also about right for an automatic  chronograph tourbillon, in which, in addition to the automatic winding system, going train, and chronograph works, you have to find additional room for the tourbillon. It’s actually slightly smaller than the LE Senna model, which came in at 44mm x 15.01mm. Tourbillons are usually (but not always) driven by the movement third wheel, whose teeth drive the pinion of the tourbillon cage, with the escape wheel (which is on the tourbillon carriage) driven by the inward facing teeth of a fixed fourth wheel at the periphery of the cage itself, all of which requires additional space.

The Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon has a classic “glass box” crystal, which contributes to the thickness but also gives extra visual presence.

This is the first chance I’ve had to see one of TAG Heuer’s Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon watches in the metal and I had some reservations going in about adding a tourbillon to a Carrera chrono at all – the tourbillon historically has not been a regulating mechanism typically found in a workhorse sports watch, as they have for most of their history required great care and precision in their construction and adjustment. The extra inertia produced by the tourbillon cage and the need to drive not only the balance, but also the cage, escape wheel, and escapement, usually meant that the cage itself had to be spiderweb-fine, which is also antithetical to the spirit of a sports watch.

However, it’s not 1801 any more (that’s the year Breguet received his patent) and the Carrera Tourbillon Chronograph’s tourbillon looks like a very sturdy piece of work, as tourbillons go; in the metal, the combination of a tourbillon with the Carrera design language is very convincing. Regulation is via four timing weights on the balance – which is therefore freesprung – and I think overall this is an instance of a tourbillon which feels, in appearance and engineering, as if it’s meant to deliver on the promise of precision.

Seen through the display back, you get the same sense of no-nonsense execution you get from the dial side. The caliber TH 20-09 is a tourbillon version of the column wheel controlled automatic chronograph caliber TH 20-00 and was announced in 2023 along with the TH 20-00 itself; the TH 20-00 in turn is an upgraded version of the Heuer 02 caliber (TAG Heuer’s Carole Forestier-Kasapi, one of fine watchmaking’s most respected movement constructors, described the upgrades to the 02 caliber in a 2023 interview). The caliber TH 20-09 is 32mm in diameter, with a 65 hour power reserve and is in every meaningful respect, a robust, technically up-to-date modern movement (which is of course exactly what you would expect from TAG Heuer).

It’s a handsome piece – crisp and clean in fit and finish (case, movement, dial and hands, and dial furniture) and a convincing addition to both TAG Heuer’s family of chronograph tourbillons, and to the larger family of chronograph tourbillons as well.

The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for TAG Heuer. 

The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon, Purple Dial, Ref. CBS5017.FC6605: Case, stainless steel, 42mm x 14.33mm, 48.6mm lug to lug, with glassbox domed sapphire crystal; water resistance 100M. Movement, TAG Heuer caliber TH 20-09, automatic chronograph with center chronograph seconds, minutes and hours subdials and one minute tourbillon, running at 28,800 vph with 65 hour power reserve. MSRP at launch, CHF 34,000. See the TAG Heuer Chronograph Tourbillon collection at TAGHeuer.com.