....change any of the current Carreras! It still wouldn't make me a potential owner as I'm just plain not as interested in the Monacos, vintage or modern, as I am the Carreras but I think they would make a modern watch, with faithful references to the past.

Case:

First up, we'll make it smaller. The trend for oversized watches is receding somewhat and the vintage Monaco case is big enough. For those markets that demand more show, make a bespoke larger edition - it will make them feel like special snowflakes and spare the rest of us the showiness. Hell, you could even provide a special import service so rap stars and bling fans could get them in countries where it's theoretically not available and make them feel even better about their purchase.

Second, why so shiny and untextured. Just looks boring and, dare I say it, a bit cheap. Some of the classic Heuer cases of the past are notable for a combination of different finishes, a fact that isn't lost on TAG-Heuer to judge by the rose gold Grand Carreras. Get some decent textures on there and not only will it look nice, it will be harder to copy accurately - these watches are up as fakes on the likes of eBay long before the real things come to market, make it harder for them to be passed off as the real thing. Some brushing on there would look good, or maybe the textured PVD finish of some of the earlier watches with different sized grains to improve wear - yes, it was for technical reasons rather than aesthetic given the state of PVD technology at the time but that didn't stop it being attractive.

Thirdly, lose the holes in the case. Yes, I know they are there to emphasise the "centrifugal system" (is it centrifugal, or is it centripetal, or at best reactive centrifugal to a centripetal force?) but it doesn't add to the look of the case in my opinion. The contrast in materials doesn't help either.

Pushers and crown:

Highly polished again is a big no-no here for me. It makes the watch look like a copy; they are so highly polished it could be chromed base metal, not steel. Give them a brushed finish - it looks more premium and has better tactility too. Round pushers are right, but those collars are way too big - if we must have them, for waterproofing I imagine, make them 1/3 the size of the pushers rather than 2/3+. And the crown is fussy in that finish, with quite a lot going on. Oddly though, I would suggest adding something to it - stripes in the Gulf colours in the slot around the middle. Breaks up what is currently just a shiny piece of metal (don't worry about stripe overkill, we'll get to that shortly). I'd make it less thick too, having it so proud of the case only makes it vulnerable to knocks.

Dial:

Ok, the big changes here. Lots of complexity for complexity's sake here, let's clean it up so it's more in tune with the clarity and simplicity of late 60s/early 70s Heuer.

Ok, the stripes are iconic but they're really iconic to Porsche and Gulf more than they are to Heuer. Spot the (anachronistic) reference on this restored 917:

But I kind of like the blue and orange so we'll keep it to an extent, but be much more subtle about it. The stripes, however, are going.

We're sticking with a black dial, and I like the texture so that stays too. I'm not buying the constituent components showing and bare screw heads as making it look technical so much as looking cheap, so we're going with a one piece dial. And it's square too. Yes, the shock absorption system is funky but buyers don't really care about this, they never have, despite the best efforts of the Franken makers to show it off with their "Incabloc" script...

The "24" text I can deal with. Since we killed the stripes, how about having the 2 in blue and the 4 in orange? I could see that working.

Covered registers, and two different, colour-coded needles to read the time from? Just a nonsense for me, complexity for the sake of it and at the severe cost of legibility. So we're going with open registers and single, straightforward needles. They don't have screw heads on the top of them either. We could go for black registers, but I want to introduce some more contrast in, given we've lost the stripes now. Bright white would certainly contrast, but the Gulf blue is quite pastelly so I'll run with that and tone the contrast down a touch by having the registers in an off-white creamy colour. I like the orange second hand so we could go with that again for the needles but given our new register colour, I think I'll go with black instead. A matte-ish black, echoing what we've done with the case finish, plus that of the dial. The current watch has too many contrasting colours, textures and finishes for me, so we're trying for a more harmonious, holistic look here.

Might be a good time to talk about the hands now then. The second hand stays as is, spot on. The timekeeping hands could stay as they are too, or we could pick up on the Gulf blue again by giving them central inserts in that colour. I thought about having markers picking up on those colours in their inserts too, but that might be getting too fussy, so we'll stick with painted ones. Potentially with the 5 minute ones in pale blue lume.

The shield. Sigh. I know the applied shields are supposed to look "premium" but it's just another texture that confuses the overall look and looks like an afterthought to me. Or a fake, the fakers love these applied shields even on models that aren't supposed to have them. Just paint it, it looks a lot cleaner. The Monaco script I can live with, in this orange or in white. The "Calibre 36" script can stay too, but it will be in the same font as "Monaco" and not italicised - mixing and matching fonts like this just looks messy and incoherent.

Date window. You know, I kind of like the dots either side of today's date, but the numbers either side are just distracting. Conveniently set in the photos to show how many days the month has but we don't need a watch for that - phones, PCs, calendars all show that too. So we're going to keep the date wheel as is but narrow the window only to show today's date and the dots either side.

Strap:

I agree with the others that croc doesn't work on these, but I do like straps and the deployant makes it comfortable and adjustable. So how about a "technical" material, like a hardwearing Alcantara in dark charcoalish colour, stitching still picking up on our highlight colours?

Like I say, I'm not sure I'd buy it still but we have a watch that looks modern enough (it doesn't need to look as modern as some of the concept watches with the breakthrough movements to be honest) and has some sympathetic echoes to the past.