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Earlier this year, when I wrote about falling in love with Tag Heuer’s ‘80s-era, candy-aisle-hued Formula 1 watches, I thought I was staking my claim as a funky, offbeat tastemaker. As it turns out, the bite-sized and colorful watches were primed to become one of the surprise hits of 2023.
Few stories I’ve written have generated the response I received about the Formula 1. People immediately started messaging me with pictures and stories about the pieces they used to own from the collection. The Formula 1 seems to have this effect on people. “Ever since I started talking about this watch when I started Dimepiece in 2020, women would DM me photos of their own F1s,” said Brynn Wallner, the founder of Dimepiece and an early supporter of the watch. “They’d be like, ‘This has been sitting in my drawer for 10 years gathering dust, and I was inspired to wear it again because of you!’ ’’
Over the course of 2023, the Formula 1 has picked up plenty of speed. “The number of sold Tag Heuer Formula 1 watches listed as being from the 1980s are up approximately 75% from 2018 to 2022,” said Tirath Kamdar, eBay’s global GM of luxury. “Average sales price for ‘original’ Tag Heuer Formula 1 watches is also increasing, with an approximate 45% increase globally in the first half of 2023, compared to the same time last year.”
Kamdar credits a “passion for nostalgia” for helping usher the Formula 1 back into the limelight. Other sellers agree with that assessment. “We believe people buy these watches today for nostalgic reasons,” said Brit Peters, of the vintage watch shop TiccTacc. “Either they had this model at that time, or they could not afford it, or they had a Swatch and missed the Tag Heuer train.”
But the watch is hammering more than just the big red nostalgia button. For an affordable watch, it comes packed with a surprisingly potent brew of Tag Heuer history. The original F1s were produced in 1985, notably the very first line of watches to come out after Tag acquired Heuer. “It’s an iconic watch with a long history at Tag Heuer,” said Peters. “(It) defined the new identity of Tag Heuer.”
