It is a bit hard to believe that after all these years this is the first hands-on article we've done with the famous TAG Heuer Monaco V4. It just goes to show that cool watches can fall through the cracks (though the video in this article is from a look we did in 2012). If you don't know, the Monaco V4 was originally a sort of concept watch designed for TAG Heuer by Jean-Francois Ruchonnet back in 2004. Given that we are writing this in 2014, I guess it is the 10th anniversary of the watch. Having said that, TAG Heuer did not come close to releasing the watch (which used many belts instead of gears in the movement) until several years later.
Five years to be exact. Designers in the watch industry such as Ruchonnet are no doubt talented and inspired, but are often known for delivering "incomplete projects." What that means from a technical standpoint is that the Monaco V4 plan he gave to TAG Heuer was not for a working timepiece. Whatever credit is due him must be tempered with the notion that it was TAG Heuer itself that poured resources into the research and development necessary to get the automotive-themed movement to actually work. There was a serious plus side to this though, all the effort required to make the Monaco V4 a reality helped create a new high-end division at TAG Heuer.
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