Back in 1953, TUDOR demonstrated their toughness by handing one of their watches to a motorcycle racer for a one-thousand mile endurance run (among other tests). The watch survived and kept time just like when it was strapped on. Thus began TUDOR’s history with motorsports and racing.
Today the company, founded in 1926, continues manufacturing fine watches, featuring Swiss automatic movements, with a strong emphasis on motorsports as the entitlement partner of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship as well as the timing partners of both the FIA World Endurance Championship and Ducati.
In addition to motorsports history, TUDOR’s heritage includes many fine diver’s watches. Pulling from that history, the Heritage Black Bay’s overall lines and domed crystal pays homage to the brand’s first divers’ watch, the TUDOR Submariner reference 7922, launched in 1954. Also recalling its predecessor is the domed dial, which had since vanished. Certain cues such as the large winding crown and characteristic angular hands are also references to TUDOR’s aesthetic heritage, connecting models from the 1960s through the ‘80s. Contemporary design features include a strong forty-one mm steel case with a refined finish, a colored, anodized aluminum crown tube, and carefully crafted interchangeable bracelets and straps that make the TUDOR Heritage Black Bay a watch with a robust identity that recognizably embodies the marque’s renewal process.
TUDOR’s Style Workshop effectively communicates, through design details, the intention governing the creation of the brand’s first divers’ watch: namely, to craft a technical and dependable divers’ tool-watch. While the first Heritage Black Bay (2012) radiated warmth, the face of the second is cool with sharp lines infusing it with a decidedly masculine, tech allure. This also recalls the TUDOR divers’ watches that equipped the Marine Nationale Française, which were generally blue. Like every model in the Heritage line, the TUDOR Heritage Black Bay includes two straps or bracelets: an adjustable blue fabric strap with an elegant weave; and the other a choice between a midnight-blue distressed leather strap matching the bezel, or a satin-finished and polished steel bracelet. A folding clasp is standard with either.
