Heuer

Édouard Heuer opened his workshop in Saint-Imier in 1860. The business made pocket watches, but an important part of its future lay in measuring an event rather than simply showing the hour. A chronograph adds a stopwatch to a watch: its timing hands must start and stop while the ordinary timekeeping continues.

Heuer's 1887 patent improved the oscillating pinion, a coupling that connects the stopwatch to the running movement. This was a small mechanism with a direct consequence for the person using it. A push of a button could engage or disengage the timing function without stopping the watch.

Jack Heuer, the founder's great-grandson, joined the company in 1958. His interests connected the firm's timing work to motor racing, both as a practical business and as a place to find customers. In his account of the 1962 Sebring race, he describes recognizing a market among the drivers and spectators. This was also where he heard the name Carrera Panamericana from the parents of Mexican drivers Pedro and Ricardo Rodríguez.

The Carrera wrist chronograph followed in 1963. Its careful spacing and legible scales belonged to a wider range of Heuer stopwatches and timing instruments. Motorsport gave the company names and associations, but making elapsed time usable was work it had been doing for decades.

The business became TAG Heuer after its acquisition in 1985. The older Heuer name remains on watches made before that change, including the early Carreras.