TAG Heuer returns to the reborn Aquaracer Professional Series with the new Aquaracer Professional 200. The latest TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 is the newest member of the family and a new, comfortably sized 40mm take on the 43mm Aquaracer Professional 300 released last year. The Aquaracer Professional range has been the La Chaux de Fond manufacture’s long-standing dive watch collection. For 2022, the TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 sports a more refined look while continuing the rich legacy of the historic Swiss Manufacture’s high-functioning everyday sports watch.
“Our eyes can read shapes quite well when they have a matt finish. The contrast we created between the brushed vertical finishes and the polished finishes on the case means that your eye doesn’t see as much of it, with the effect that the watch appears to have a slimmer profile.” – Guy Bove, TAG Heuer’s Creative Director
The Aquaracer collection can be traced back to the early 1980s when TAG Heuer presented the 2000-series of watches which eventually included dive and chronograph watches. This year, the Aquaracer Professional 200 comes on a stainless steel bracelet so well executed in terms of fit and finish that at a glance, it appears integrated with the case. The new Aquaracer also sports a combination of brushed and polished surfaces similar to its predecessors. In addition to the decrease to a more manageable 40mm, the latest Aquaracer trades its ceramic insert for a unidirectional steel bezel with inlaid numerals: the result is sportive elegance through the simplicity of satin brushed steel.
“With both the automatic and quartz versions, we’ve played on the theme of elegance, giving the watch a narrower bezel, longer indexes, and stronger markers at 3, 6, 9, and 12. It’s more of a street watch in the sense that it’s more elegant and refined, and something you might more readily consider wearing with a suit. That’s why we gave the automatics a fumé dial, for instance.”
Pulling back on its utilitarian look and feel has allowed the new Aquaracer Professional 200 to excel aesthetically with its dressier dials. Comprising both automatic and quartz-powered movements, the automatic variants feature dials with inlaid horizontal line pattern and accented with a fumé or “smoked” effect in either blue or slate grey. The quartz editions sport the same horizontal lines, only it’s further decorated with a sunray effect as opposed to the gradient hues, and is offered only in a no-date configuration with a black or silver dial. While the automatic TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 does come with a date display, it is fairly unobtrusive and further enhanced by the fact that the six o’clock date display contains no cyclops magnifier.
Gone are the old hexagonal hour indexes and replaced with trapezoidal applied indexes, indicated with “sword” hour and minute hands. To aid with legibility under low light conditions, all hands and markers have a Super-LumiNova insert. The relationship between the Aquaracer Professional 200 and Aquaracer Professional 300 is easily defined. Both have the famous and now upgraded bezel with twelve facets first introduced in 1995; both feature a refined, repeating horizontal line dial decoration; both have sculpted, chamfered, shorter lugs with brushed and polished finishes; both are fitted with a three-link bracelet (which in addition to being highly flexible and durable, comes with a comfort link with a 7mm extension that can be adjusted quickly using a beautifully engineered push-down-and-pull release mechanism), and both have a screw-down crown with twelve facets and protection.
Closer inspection reveals a series of subtle, but definitive differences, all of which give the Aquaracer Professional 200 its unique character and versatility. The latest TAG Heuer Aquaracer is powered by the Calibre 5 automatic movement, a modified Sellita SW 200-1 at heart. Hidden behind a caseback decorated with a compass emblem, it provides 38 hours of power reserve when fully wound. The central bracelet link is polished rather than brushed, lending the Aquaracer Professional 200 its more formal feel, intended to help it cross codes, from sea to mountain, via the office and a weekend hangout.
TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 Price & Specs
Case 40mm stainless steel case with 200 metres water resistance
Movement Automatic Calibre 5 with 38 hours power reserve
Price EUR 2,500
