Brand: | Heuer |
Model: | Autavia Mark 5 Derek Bell |
Reference: | 1163 MH |
Gender: | male/uni-sex |
Year: | 1970/1 |
Material: | stainless steel |
Dial Color: | Black with white subcounters and red accents |
Dimensions: | 42mm 47 lug to lug |
Watch Movement: | automatic |
Bracelet/Strap: | original Gay Freres single grain beads of rice bracelet with original Heuer clasp with code 3rd quarter of 1969. One HLD and one HLF end link. |
Box/Paper: | Comes with WRIST ICONS handmade leather pouch if ordered at WRIST ICONS website made by Jean Paul Menicucci |
Condition: | Excellent |
WRIST ICONS presents another super cool Heuer Autavia. The 1163 MH Autavia as worn by the famous racing legend Derek Bell in the early 70s. This watch is a rare specimen.
It looks a lot like the later Autavia Viceroy, the watch one could buy with a cigarette promotion (“…to get this $200 watch with gift case, just send 1 Viceroy carton end flap and $88 to…”). Both have the reverse panda lay out with great red accents.
What sets the Derek Bell MK 5 apart from the Viceroy are the steel hands without the red paint on the tips and the scaling of the hour counter sub dial which stated 3-6-9-12 instead of 1,2,3-12. This execution also has the polished hour markers instead of the ridged hour markers. As a cherry on the cake this this particular Autavia also has its original 1969 Gay Freres single grain rise bracelet.
The origin of the name goes back to 1933, when Heuer designed its first dash counter for racing cars, boats and aircraft. The name was a contraction of AUTomobile and AVIAtion.. Heuer and racing. It’s a match made in heaven. In 1962 Jack Heuer, the 30 year old grandson of Edward Heuer, had a genius insight and he introduced his first wrist watch with a turning bezel and called it the Autavia.
After participating rally’s as a way to conduct market research Jack Heuer got more and more interested in motorsports. The Autavia dial was designed out of frustration of loosing a rally course. Jack Heuer, was the co-pilot and he did misread the dial of the Heuer 12-hour “Autavia” dashboard stopwatch by a minute. The result was that his team called Heuer /Heuer with a youth friend Samuel Heuer (same name not related) came in third place instead of first. This error infuriated Jack and made him realize that the dial of the “Autavia” stopwatch was unclear, confusing and very difficult to read correctly in a speeding rally car. Therefore he made another chronograph with a better legible dial and big large central minute hand, they called it the Monaco.
“As a result of this new product the old “Autavia” became redundant and they withdrew it from our product line. However, they still had the excellent name of “Autavia”, which combined the words “automobile” and “aviation”, available for a new product. In the autumn of 1961 i decided with my production team to create a new “Autavia” as a wrist chronograph. until then we had never added a turning bezel to one of our wrist chronographs. We therefore designed this new “Autavia” to have a turning black bezel with a choice of division markers. A bezel with 60 separate one-minute divisions, for example, would allow the wearer to set a marker for a defined interval of less than one hour; a 12-hour division would allow the time in another time zone to be displayed; and divisions of 1/100th of a minute would be useful for time study purposes.” Source: The Times of my Life. An Autobiography by Jack Heuer
Jack Heuer brought his stopwatches, dashboard clocks, timing gear and wristwatches to the racing teams. The race teams and their drivers loved these wristwatches which had been very much useful with their high legibility and additional function of a rotating bezel. Many of the greatest drivers of that era used to wear Heuer watches.
Its ambassadors were the greatest Formula 1 drivers of the 1960s and 1970s: Jo Siffert, Jochen Rindt, Derek Bell, Jacky Ickx, Emerson Fittipaldi, Clay Regazzoni, Mario Andretti, and Gilles Villeneuve among the others.
The ties between the Heuer brand and motor sport were very strong. In fact, aside from cigarette manufacturers, Heuer was one of the very first Formula 1 sponsors. And let’s not forget Heuer was also on of the first brands ever to do product placement in a film. Steve McQueen wore the Monaco model in the movie Le Mans.
In 1969 Heuer, Breitling and Hamilton were the first to bring the automatic chronograph to the market. These were the Chronomatic watches with the Caliber 11. Because of the rush to be first to market with Heuer’s partners this groundbreaking movement needed some improvements shortly after release and in 1970 the caliber 11i was released fine tuning the movement.
The caliber 12 movement improved further on the 11i and was introduced during the 1133 Monacos and 1163 Autavia ‘s lifecycle in 1971. The main improvements were strengthening of some key parts and a faster beat rate from 19800 VPH to 21600 VPH.
This stunning example of the Heuer Autavia 1163 MH Autavia Mark 5 Derek Bell has just been completely serviced by our watchmaker. He is a retired watchmaker that has contributed to the development of Caliber 11 when he was working as an employee at Breitling on project 99 (the joint venture of Heuer, Breitling and Hamilton to develop the world’s first automatic chronographs).
Overall, the exceptional finishing of the Heuer 1163 Autavia Derek Bell is noteworthy, both for its design and execution. This steel Heuer 1163 Autavia Derek Bell is is remarkably well preserved.
As with all of our pre-owned watches this watch comes with a full 12 month WRIST ICONS warranty that will be invoked from the day of purchase. Please check our website to have a look at the high resolution pictures on a macro level. You will see every detail at its best. Viewings can be arranged at our office by appointment.
Brand |
Heuer |
Model |
Autavia |
Reference |
1163 |
Year |
1971 |
Caliber |
12 |
Case number |
2040xx |
Case |
It has a stainless steel case with screw down case back which is signed Heuer-Leonidas SA SWISS STAINLESS STEEL
|
Case dimensions |
42.5mm diameter, thickness 13.5mm, lug width 20mm |
Dial |
This reference has a matte black cream dial with a painted logo and the Autavia Automatic Chronograph text on it. Further it has applied hour indices and a date window at six. The sub dial are white. The hour and minute hands are polished silver with black painted base. The sub dial hands are stick shaped and black. The chrono hand is red and spear shaped. Over all they match the dial really well.
|
Crystal |
Plexiglass |
Bracelet/Strap
|
original Gay Freres single grain beads of rice bracelet with original Heuer clasp with code 3rd quarter of 1969. One HLD and one HLF end link. |
Lug Width |
20mm |
Box/Papers |
Comes with WRIST ICONS leather pouch if ordered at WRIST ICONS website made by Jean Paul Menicucci |