The Colors of Racing: The New TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Team Ikuzawa

TAG Heuer keeps finding new ways to tell its favorite story, the one about racing. This time it’s told with a Japanese accent. Unveiled in Tokyo on July 30, the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Team Ikuzawa reunites the Swiss watchmaker with Team Ikuzawa and George Bamford’s Bamford Watch Department, three years after their first collaboration, for a 150-piece limited edition steeped in the golden age of Japanese motorsport.

Team Ikuzawa is one of Japan’s most storied racing names, built by the legendary driver Tetsu Ikuzawa and carried forward today by his daughter, Mai. Team Principal, Creative Director, and a Central Saint Martins graduate, Mai has spent two decades recasting the team as a cultural platform that reaches into fashion, art, and design. For the watch, she again partnered with Bamford, the customization specialist known for reinterpreting icons with a collector’s eye.

The design springs from a single object in the Team Ikuzawa archive: the Roadmaster stopwatch, a bold, hyper-legible timing instrument that became a symbol of the team through the 1970s and 1980s. Bamford and Ikuzawa studied its graphics, proportions, and colors, then translated them onto the 39mm TAG Heuer Carrera Glassbox, whose bezel-free domed crystal gives an uninterrupted view of the dial, a direct line back to Jack Heuer’s original obsession with legibility.

The dial is the star. Finished in white with a fine Clou de Paris texture and printed rather than applied indexes, it reads like a stopwatch face, punctuated by red accents on the hands, the central chronograph seconds, and even the date numerals. The cleverest move sits at 6 o’clock, where the Team Ikuzawa signature occupies space that would normally hold a running-seconds sub-dial. TAG Heuer’s TH20-10 manufacture chronograph simply omits that display, a nod to the 1960s and ’70s Heuer chronographs that reserved dial real estate for racing teams and sponsors.

The details keep the theme running. A black flange frames a crisp white minute track, and the crown wears a red lacquered ring. Beyond the seven-row steel bracelet, the watch ships with two more straps: a perforated white leather one with red stitching modeled on classic racing gloves, and a red-and-white textile strap drawn from Team Ikuzawa’s livery. Even the box plays along, styled after a pit-garage toolbox and packed with a travel pouch and a set of custom Team Ikuzawa charms for keys and accessories.

Priced at $10,500 and numbered to 150, the Carrera x Team Ikuzawa is a small-run collector’s piece with an outsized story: Swiss chronograph heritage and Japanese motorsport cool, filtered through one of watch customization’s sharpest eyes. Three years after their first outing, the partnership no longer feels like a one-off. TAG Heuer has increasingly handed its icons to outside creatives, and this cross-cultural racing piece feels like a language the brand intends to keep speaking.

Adrienne Faurote

Haute Time

As a former New Yorker, now a “Miamian,” Adrienne Faurote joined Haute Living in August of 2021. She currently serves as the Haute Media Group Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all editorial platforms within the Haute Media Group while also maintaining her role as Fashion, Jewelry & Watch Director. Prior to her position at Haute Living, Faurote was the Market Editor at Marie Claire Magazine US, amassing over ten years in the industry, becoming an authoritative voice in all things fashion, jewelry, and watches.