The combination of film and a watch can sometimes trigger a review.
So put my "Clockwork Orange" or rather a review of the HEUER Diver 'Orange' 980.005.

As often in my collection is an aesthetic approach and not mechanical dictated my choice for this model. For this watch, the dial was decisive.

A little color story…

Color "Orange" Always marked Heuer brand: For example : Autavia 1163 "orange boy" : brushed hands have orange inserts and tips; chrono needles dark orange,

But also on models like my 11630 GMT,

or on dive watches like this beautiful "Decompression" to my friend NOODIA.

Noodia sends me this picture of “proto model” and this demonstrates the interest of the brand for this color.

But a totally “orange dial” is finally for this diver, a "Toolwatch" for some people but this diver is a model particularly endearing and one of the few models to "save" 80’s HEUER years.

A bit of history...

70 years have marked the transition to automatic movement (caliber 11, 12 ...), but the late 70's are a sign of the arrival of quartz.

The brand is looking for a second wind and meets the demand of dive watch simple and effective it starts, through the company G. Monnin in manufacturing "Made in France" a first series.

It seems that the choice was also economical because it avoided heavy capital expenditure in tooling for manufacturing (new case, polishing, etc ...).

Sales follow it therefore resembles a success, and production was soon moved to Switzerland. One explanation for the presence of "Swiss made" that we see appear in the catalogs of 81 and 82 but not on the 1979.

the catalog of the brand from 1979 to 1982.

1st appearance: Catalogue HEUER 1979 (credit OTD)

2nd appearance: Catalogue HEUER 1981 (credit OTD)

3rd and last appearance: Catalogue HEUER 1982 (credit OTD)

A difference between the years?

The major difference is the form of hands Time / minutes.
"cathedral hands" (catalog 79/81) for primitive production then "Mercedes hands" (catalog 82) as the model that I present..
But the great outline is given on the model size: 42mm for men and 28mm for women

View of my mercedes hand

The divers saving Heuer?

We can consider that these "divers" saved time Heuer brand.

This is not a baseless statement ... an interview with David from Cal. 11 with Jack Heuer clearly evokes the success of these watches during the quartz crisis :

“ And so people came from the skin-diving companies and they said that we have problems getting a good quality skin-diving watch- they couldn’t get it from a big brand, they didn’t want to allow them to buy it with the [Skin-diving] brand, and so we started making and double-branding with some of the big names in skin-diving equipment, such as Spirotechnique.
And would you believe it, these watches started selling like crazy! The company came out of trouble because of these watches".
http://www.calibre11.com/interview-jack-heuer

My diver watch :

The movement seems to be a reference: Felsa automatic FE 4611A

Crown not badged and see a NOS graduated bezel

Watch case and beautiful polish

Bracelet option : it was possible to get a bracelet TS (Tropic Strap) or SB (Steel Bracelet)
A metal bracelet that looks like a bracelet “président” (like Rolex) on specific links (matte and glossy).

I chose a Nato bracelet (black / orange) but sometimes, for summer I prefer Tropic strap.

Just for fun, I also discovered from reading this interview of J.HEUER : Bo Derek had a diver of the brand!

This is especially the name of Bo Derek who reminds me some idea of sexy attitude

If you find “Bo” with her diver watch who are the winner!

Final Wristshot

Keep the faith

Djayrom