To maximise returns from the introduction of the new revolutionary movement, Jack Heuer and his team decided to also use it in the Autavia, a chronograph specifically targeted to the Automotive and the Aviation markets.Īt the same time, they started considering the idea to also build a less traditional timepiece - “something out-of-the-box” and "avant-garde", to use Jack Heuer’s words - around the brand new movement.Įrwin Piquerez, the owner of a large Swiss industry making watch cases, proposed to Jack Heuer a new square case that he had just patented to guarantee waterproofness, a first for a square case. This required to modify the shape of the Carrera case because the original shape was too slim to house the pretty thick movement. Heuer originally planned to use this movement - known as Chronomatic Calibre 11 - in a Carrera model. Beating at 19,800 vibrations per hour, the movement offered a power reserve of approximately 42 hours. To achieve this milestone, Jack Heuer had promoted a partnership with Buren, Dubois Depraz and Breitling.īuren was an important manufacturer of thin automatic movements, Dubois Depraz the leading specialist in the development of chronograph modules and other complications and Breitling another famous chronograph manufacturer that could share with Heuer the funding of this expensive project - codenamed Project 99 - and the resulting output: a modular automatic chronograph built on a Buren base movement (including the self-winding and calendar mechanisms) with an independent Dubois-Depraz chronograph module attached to the watch movement by three screws. In the 1960s, Jack William Heuer, a great-grandson of the company founder, was the Managing Director of the brand and was directly involved in the development of new models like the highly successful Carrera.Īt the time, automatic watches were the call of the day and Heuer was hectically working on the creation of the world’s first automatic chronograph movement available to the public to be launched at the Basel fair in 1969. Les’s consider the background behind the development of this unusual chronograph characterised by a unique square case design. The sporty image of the brand was further consolidated, in 1969, by the creation of a watch destined to become iconic, the Monaco.
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