It seems like the season of birthdays and anniversaries for our vintage Heuer community. Jack Heuer celebrated his 80th birthday on November 19th and TAG Heuer will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Carrera throughout 2013. But before we turn the page on 2012, there’s one more birthday that we need to celebrate. You see, the Autavia chronograph was introduced in 1962, meaning that it turned 50 during 2012.

It’s not surprising that TAG Heuer has not celebrated the anniversary of the Autavia, as there is currently no Autavia in the TAG Heuer model line. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Autavia. It’s 2012 . . . the era of social media, flash mobs, crowd sourcing and crowd funding, so let’s do a little “crowd celebrating”. We know that the Autavia chronograph is worthy of being celebrated – it was the first 1960s Heuer chronograph to have a model name. Perhaps we can say that without the Autavia in 1962, there would have been no Carrera in 1963.

Here’s the plan: We will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Autavia chronograph, starting on December 6, 2012. To see why we have chosen December 6th, have a look at the Autavia shown below . . . that’s right, the Autavia with the numerals “6” and “12”, as in the 6th day of the 12th month (12/6 here in the US or 6/12 in other parts of the world).

As part of celebration, you can:

• post a photo of your favorite Autavia (or even a group of Autavias)
• tell us a story about your favorite Autavia – maybe one that you found in a flea market or a sock drawer; I know that we once saw one that had been buried in someone’s backyard; I’ll try to find the photos of that one.
• tell us something interesting that you have learned about the Autavia . . . maybe an item of Autavia trivia or a little known fact
• if TAG Heuer were to do a re-issue of the Autavia, what should it look like? Should it be a homage to the 60s manual wind Autavias or the 70s style models? Stainless steel case or black PVD?

Jeff