Tag Heuer Monaco LS Chronograph Calibre 12 Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Jul 7th 2009 at 12:01PM

From concept to reality - sort of. I got excited seeing some of the Tag Heuer Monaco watch concepts shown at Baselworld the last few years. Instead of any of those watches really making it to production (with some exceptions) we have this Monaco LS Chronograph Calibre 12 watch model, that is like the "eventual production model of a concept car" that itself was too impracticable for production. Alas, this Monaco LS Chronograph Calibre 12 watch is "based" on the Tag Heuer Monaco 360 concept watch.

Underneath the designer dial, is a basic array of subdial discs, save for the dial and hand for the chronograph hours located at 6 o'clock. For the most part the dial is just a series of visual tricks to make it look more complicated than it really is. For example, take the "linear" seconds counter located at 3 o'clock. It looks like a horizontally laid out linear gauge, but in reality it is just the appearance of that with a disc bearing a spiral red line underneath that looks like it travels across the linear dial. The same goes for the chic looking counters at 12 and 9 o'clock - nothing that special and more gimmicky.

Powering the watch is Dubois Depraz automatic mechanical chronograph movement inside of the 40.5mm wide steel case that is WR to 100 meters. Style of course refers to the "futuristic" concept Monaco watches that some of you have lusted for, but for me this Monaco LS Chronograph watch is simply not that satisfying a consolation prize to those interesting concepts which are not available. Not a bad watch, but certainly underwhelming once the initial novelty of the style wears off.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: calibre 12, Calibre12, chronograph, LS, monaco, tag heuer, TagHeuer, timeiece, watch