Heuer Carrera automatic chronograph in 18 karat yellow gold (front and back). Jack Heuer gave this watch in 1972 to the legendary Formula One driver Ronnie Peterson, hence the engraving on the back of the case. The timepiece encases Caliber 12, which succeeded the trailblazing Caliber 11. The dial too had a new design. Peterson?s heirs arranged to have the watch auctioned at Sotheby?s in 2016, where it changed hands for 225,000 Swiss francs.
 
The 70s: Another Golden Era for the Heuer Carrera
The new Carrera automatic chronograph excited motorsport lovers. Ferrari racing drivers preferred it in gold.
Motorsport has always been in the DNA of the Heuer Carrera, which was named after an auto race. Heuer began an innovative partnership with Ferrari in the 1970s. The gold Carrera chronograph, which was given to each Ferrari driver in the Formula One race, became a symbol of the natural symbiosis at Heuer between timekeeping and auto racing. Heuer began the new decade even before the old one had ended. Jack Heuer, the firm?s boss at that time and its honorary chairman today, knew that his chronographs would only have a future if they were also available as self-winding watches. To raise the enormous sums needed to develop the world?s first automatic chronograph, Heuer Leonidas SA formed a strategic alliance with several partners: Büren, the movement manufacturer, contributed the automatic movement with microrotor; Dubois-Dépraz developed a suitable chronograph module wit...