A Week On The Wrist The TAG Heuer Carrera 'Glassbox' 39mm: It's Time To Care About The Carrera Again

On the surface, it's a well-sized, modern watch that pulls on Heuer's heritage without overdoing it. But I wanted to dig deeper into the Carrera Glassbox to see what it's all about, and what it might mean for the direction of TAG Heuer. This is A Week On The Wrist with the new, black TAG Heuer Carrera Glassbox in 39mm.

Heuer introduced the Carrera in 1963. These original manual-wind Carreras from the '60s are some of my favorite chronographs, ever. Each is, to steal a Stacey-ism, one unit of pure chronograph – no more, no less.

Jack Heuer designed the Carrera and named it after the legendary Carrera Panamerica, a grueling, 1,000-plus mile race through Mexico that only ran for four years because it was so intense. As he's explained to us, he designed the watch with maximum legibility in mind. Everything down to the length and thickness of the markers on the outer scales was considered with readability in mind (watch the linked video for the full explainer, but it's all about the rule of thirds). Heuer had also just secured the rights to use the tension ring, the small outer ring that holds the crystal in place and increases water resistance. This meant Heuer could add the chronograph's outer scales to the tension ring, allowing for a large, clean dial. 

The Carrera had a lot in common with its contemporaries, namely the Omega Speedmaster and even more so with the Rolex Daytona. The Daytona and Carrera both used a Valjoux 72 caliber and had dials made by Singer, which owes to their similar three-register layouts, hour markers, and font. Look closely, and you'll see some of these details are in the Glassbox. But the Carrera has always been a favorite of mine. The design is clean, there's a lot of variety to get lost in, and Heuer's ties to racing run legitimately deep.

Perhaps most importantly, these vintage Carreras are, mostly, much cheaper than comparable watches from Rolex or Omega. Sure, there are a few holy grail Carreras, which Jeff Stein has delineated nicely over at On the Dash. As someone who grew up in Indianapolis going to the Indy 500, any Heuer with the Speedway's wings and wheel logo is a personal favorite. But even these grails don't go much above $50k or so, depending on the day. Try finding any decent vintage Daytona for that much. I've owned a couple of vintage Carreras over the years, and they remain some of my favorite vintage watches. At 36mm, the case is compact, but the long, polished lugs give it a distinct and elegant presence on the wrist. It's this balance we've been waiting to see TAG Heuer replicate in a modern Carrera.

While the name Carrera dates back to the '60s, TAG Heuer introduced the "Glassbox" in 2015. The new domed sapphire crystal in a 39mm case was designed to call to mind the domed plastic crystals of those vintage Carreras. From 2015 until 2023, Heuer used the 39mm Glassbox case in eight references, but they were always limited editions (a couple – the Dato and the Skipper – were ours). Typically, these were direct references to historical designs, as indicated by the "Heuer" only logo at 6 o'clock. These limited editions also all had a bit of a bug: when viewed straight on, it could be difficult to see the tachymeter. Well, no longer.

For 2023, the 60th anniversary of the Carrera, TAG Heuer introduced the second generation of the 39mm Glassbox. Most importantly, unlike the first generation of the Glassbox, these are general production watches, and not limited editions.

The black Carrera Glassbox comes on a comfy, padded leather strap that's perforated to call to mind old-school racing straps. The strap tapers from 20mm to 18mm and is attached with a double-trigger deployant clasp. Because of the padding, it's actually a bit tough to thread through the deployant, but if you can floss your teeth, you can size this clasp. The strap leans a bit into the racing cosplay of the Carrera, but that's fine; watches, especially vintage watches, are a lot of cosplay anyway.

I chose to spend a week with the black dial, but there's also a more modern-looking blue version. I get why some people (read: Danny Milton) prefer the blue dial, but I just couldn't get over the phantom seconds subdial that bleeds into the 6 o'clock date window.

The black version takes more queues from Heuer's heritage, a direct callback to the ref. 2447NST and its reverse panda layout with black dial and silver sub-registers. There's "fauxtina" lume on the hands and plots above the applied hour markers. I found the application modest enough to be inoffensive. The hands have a black strip running down the middle, calling to mind the second-gen of the original Carrera, when a black strip was added to increase legibility. The sub-registers are well executed, with the font harkening back to the original Singer-produced Carrera dials.

Of course, we have to talk about the date placement. The date window sits at 12 o'clock and actually plays with the rest of the dial relatively well. But part of this is because when the chronograph hand is zeroed out, it partially blocks the window, making it difficult to read. The positive spin on this, if you don't really like date windows, is that it almost makes the watch feel like a no-date proposition. The critical (and more realistic) take is that it's basically a design flaw.

Funny enough, when Heuer first introduced a date to the Carrera in the '60s with the Dato ref. 3147, it also placed the date window above 12 o'clock. It quickly realized the readability issue and moved the date window to nine o'clock, creating the now-iconic Dato that enthusiasts love and that served as inspiration for the Hodinkee Skipper and Dato limited editions. Sometimes, we don't quite learn from our past mistakes.

Previous iterations of the 39mm Glassbox used the old "Heuer" logo, but I was actually pleased to see the modern TAG Heuer mark on this new generation of the Glassbox. This isn't a heritage watch – it's a thoroughly modern take on the original Carrera. It's the type of watch that TAG Heuer should be making. TAG Heuer has been around for nearly 40 years now and it's got a history of its own. On the one hand, it creates cutting-edge watches (TAG does stand for avant-garde, after all) like the Plasma Tourbillon; on the other, it attempts to appease enthusiasts with limited-edition heritage remakes. The Carrera Glassbox beautifully balances these two sides of TAG (I'm not afraid to admit that the Mario Kart collabs somehow hit the same note for me; it shows TAG doesn't take the whole racing heritage thing too seriously).

It's not perfect, but the Carrera Glassbox is a huge step in the right direction for TAG Heuer. It builds on the previous success of those Glassbox limited editions to make a Carrera Glassbox that's fit for modern consumers.

"We felt the potential was limited by the fact that [these watches] were viewed as vintage re-editions," brand CEO Frederic Arnault said of the first-gen Glassbox when introducing the new Glassbox earlier this year. "The thought became, 'How can we continue to modernize it to make it the watch of today?'"

Inside the Carrera Glassbox is the manufacture caliber TH20-00. It's an impressive, automatic chronograph movement that beats at 4 Hz and has an 80-hour power reserve. We'll get to this in competition, but the caliber is best-in-class and pretty much unmatched at this price point. The TH20-00 is the next generation of the caliber Heuer 02, the in-house movement TAG introduced in 2017. It has a column wheel and vertical clutch mechanism, exactly what you'd ask of a luxury, in-house chronograph caliber. The caliber is visible through the sapphire caseback. The industrial finishing isn't much to look at, but it's always fun to see a column wheel, basically the on-off switch for the chronograph mechanism, in action.

The vertical clutch ensures the chronograph actuation is smooth when pressing pump pushers. It's not a buttery-smooth engagement, but there's a satisfying slap feeling when you start the chronograph.

To answer the biggest question: The thickness isn't much of an issue. It's 14mm, and about 3mm is due to the domed crystal. I was left slightly disappointed by the angular lugs; or more accurately, the lug-to-diameter ratio (if that's a thing). Let me explain: The original Carrera is 36mm in diameter but about 45mm lug-to-lug, thanks to those long, polished lugs. They're bold but elegant, giving the Carrera a refined wrist presence. At 39mm and 46mm lug-to-lug, The Carrera Glassbox feels short and squat by comparison.

But it's not practical to compare the modern Glassbox to the vintage Carrera. So once you put that aside, the fact remains: This watch wears wonderfully on the wrist. It's compact, but with no bezel and that sloped dial, it can feel even bigger. The Heuer Carrera was the perfect "dress chronograph" – the watch you'd wear to the race track and to the black-tie awards ceremony later that night. The TAG Heuer Carrera Glassbox feels more like a true sports chronograph. With the tachymeter scale sitting above the rest of the dial, the function of the chronograph is quite literally front and center; with the TH20-00 inside, the Glassbox lives up to its promise of performance.

Legibility is excellent, just as Jack Heuer would've demanded; any visibility issues from the previous-generation Glassbox are gone, thanks to the new dial-bezel combo. With the tracks raised above the main dial, the chronograph functions especially well as a chronograph.

The concave shape of the dial slopes upwards towards the dial edge and fills up the crystal. The dial is certainly busy compared to, say, the 60th Anniversary Carrera, but the exact inspiration for this watch is the 2447NST, which gets a little busy with the outer scale. Its aim is actually more ambitious than those re-editions, a fresh take on the core elements of the original Carrera. At certain angles, it almost looks like the tachymeter itself is a sapphire bezel. The sub-registers are particularly well executed, with font and circular graining that feel pulled from the '60s.

Together, the crystal and sloped dial create this novel, wonderful, confusing optical illusion that made me want to keep looking at the dial. On paper, it's a black and silver chronograph dial, but there's so much more going on here.

On price alone, the Carrera Glassbox, MSRP $6,450, has plenty of competition. Longines, Tudor, and Omega, among others, offer solid chronographs in the $5,000–$7,000 range. Here's where the Carrera Glassbox fits in with some competitors:

• Longines Spirit Chronograph: $3,225
• Tudor Black Bay Chrono: $5,500 (on bracelet)
• TAG Heuer Carrera Glassbox: $6,450
• Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch: $6,600 (on strap)
• IWC Pilot's Chronograph 41: starting at $7,600
• Breitling Premier or Top Time: starting at $8,500

Look at this list and you'll realize none of these are total comps with the specs, design, and price of the Carrera Glassbox. Let's take a closer look to see what I mean.

Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch

All the so-called shortcomings of the Speedmaster Moonwatch mean that, technically speaking, it falls short of the Carrera Glassbox on paper. It's manual-wind, only has 50m of water resistance, and the design hasn't changed much since the 1970s. But, as the saying goes, this is a feature, not a bug. Omega has consistently improved the Speedmaster over the years, most recently in 2021. It's never gone out of style or out of production. In some ways, this is what TAG Heuer could've – perhaps even should've – been doing with the Carrera over the last 50 years.

A Master Chronometer Speedy Pro starts at $6,600 on strap, a little more on the bracelet depending on the type of crystal you choose. The fact that there's even a general production Carrera I might mention in the same breath as the Speedmaster shows how far TAG Heuer has managed to come with this one, well-executed release. Sure, if you're choosing one modern chronograph to add to your watch box, I'm probably going to recommend the Speedmaster over the Carrera Glassbox most of the time. But for a certain type of person, the TAG Heuer is an interesting option that offers something different.

Tudor Black Bay Chrono

As with most discussions at this price point, it comes back to Tudor. The Black Bay Chronograph comes in at $5,500 on a bracelet but wears bigger than the Carrera Glassbox (41mm diameter x 14.5mm thickness). It uses the MT5813, essentially a variation of the Breitling B01 built for Tudor. So for Tudor, it's not an in-house movement and the specs don't match the TH20-00. Meanwhile, after discontinuing the Heritage Chronograph this year and then teasing us with a gold "Big Block" for (now postponed) Only Watch, complete with an in-house movement, enthusiasts are eagerly waiting to see what a next-generation heritage chrono from Tudor might look like.

Longines Spirit Chronograph

I love so many of Longines' heritage-inspired releases, but none of its chronographs have quite nailed it for me yet. What the brand's chronograph offerings offer in price (sub-$5,000), they often lose in specs. The Spirit Chronograph is a bit big for our friendly competition (42mm), while the new Spirit Flyback is thick thick thick (17mm).

Other Competition

I mentioned the Breitling B01 caliber used in the Black Bay Chrono, which is probably the closest competitor to the TH 20-00 from a technical perspective. Breitling uses its manufacturer caliber in a number of its own collections, but they're all a bit too expensive to be reasonable alternatives. The Navitimer B01 starts at $9,000, while the Premier B09 and the Top Time B01, great comparison in terms of minimal, mid-century design, each start at around $8,000. It's also my duty to mention that Habring² makes a hell of a chronograph (and even a split seconds) for under $10k, if you can get your hands on one.

Also too expensive to mention as competition: IWC's Pilot's 41 Chronograph starts at $7,600 on a strap (the IWC Portugeiser starts at $8,400), while the Zenith El Primero Chronomaster Original starts at $9,500 on a strap. We could continue to go up market until we reach the updated Rolex Daytona at $15,100 – but by then we're certainly talking about something else, aren't we?

Of course, this all assumes you're strolling into the local AD and want to be something new. Many of these watches that fall above our price point can be found cheaper pre-owned. Beyond that, we could start to talk about Tudor chronographs from the '90s, but then this starts to morph into a different conversation.