Looks like a very nice example of this particular configuration of 1153. Typically, the paint on the black registers bubbles up with age - I think yours is the first I have seen that hasn't been affected by this.

Thanks to Paul sending through the serial number of his example, I know these were earlier than I expected, so I am beginning to crystallise my efforts to find documentation for them around a specific year.

X4111X is entirely possible. However, it's the first two digits that really let us know how old a watch is. I can make it easier for you - the first number can be either a 2 (which makes it earlier again than I had thought) or a 3 (which would put it smack bang in the middle of Paul's serial and where I thought these might sit in the timescale). Yours does have the "earlier" Tachy scale but these are used alongside the "later" scale once those have been introduced, so that doesn't have to be definitive. One of the things I do when I'm struggling to read a serial is take the watch outside, as natural light can sometimes reveal these where artificial light can't (I hope no-one has seen my bizarre "holding lupe up to watch and moving watch around in the sun" ritual!). Sunshine might be at a premium at this time of year though...

Thanks also to Gianni, who pointed out a watch on eBay that had some problems with hands and pushers:

but was also the first evidence (for me at least), that this version was also produced in a silver dial variant.

So, research is still ongoing, but at least I'm building up a nice gallery of these variants. And it's nice still to have some element of mystery to Carreras after all my research, can't let those Autavia guys have all the fun with their two "mysteries", can we?!