Fumé Dial 110.313 Heuer Silverstone

Some watches seem removed from time, perennially elegant, like the 3940, 1463, 5513, or any other arrangement of four digits from Patek or Rolex that you care to mention. Others lean into their era and attach themselves to it violently, like tap dancing on the Titanic until the trends change and it sinks. The Silverstone is decidedly the latter, the most 70s watch there has ever been. It’s the Bee Gees, Vietnam War, Watergate, oil crises, and grid girls in F1 all wrapped into one watch. It’s a Monaco with a sense of style.

In fact, the Silverstone was intended to supersede the Monaco’s throne in 1974, carrying on the legacy of one of the earliest automatic chronographs calibres made. It walked back the divisive square case and softened the edges, which landed it back in the F1 grid’s graces. The Silverstone was made most famous recently in the film Rush, where the film-based fictional Niki Lauda wore one. The real Lauda wore a gold 1158 Carrera. It was Clay Regazzoni, storied mustache enthusiast and Ferrari F1 legend, who sported a Silverstone regularly and was often pictured with it. TAG now own that example.

The Silverstone was available in a blue dial, red dial, or what we see here. This is largely considered the most desirable, grey with a true fumé, or smoked, finish. The named was revived in 1983 for a Lemania 5100 based oddity, but that left the catalogue within the year. Then in 2010 TAG brought it back to celebrate the company’s 150th in a limited edition. It’s never spent a substantial time in continuous production. Interestingly, the name is more than skin deep. Monaco is a circuit with tight 90-degree angles, where Silverstone is all long, sweeping high speed corners. The case designs reflect their namesakes. Perhaps that’s why the Heuer Montreal looks like an apologetic hockey puck. In any event, the Silverstone is a lost great Heuer. No one would call it elegant. They’d use words like fun or cool. The Silverstone isn’t nearly as serious as the track, it just makes watch people smile. The real watch lovers anyway. And surely that’s what it’s all about. Perhaps that’s why it’s the only dial Jack Heuer ever put his signature on.

This Silverstone appears to be a fantastic example. The case is definitely sharp, with the nice harsh edge to the concave bezel that you need to see for this case to still have that angular side to its architecture. The grey dial has warmed a bit over time, these can age in pretty wild ways. But this one looks like it’s been hiding away for a good chunk of its life. It even has the caseback sticker still on, almost worn through. The tritium is a perfect tan as well. It comes from a well-regarded Spanish retailer.