It’s safe to say that this Autavia Diver 100 had seen better days. Let’s do something about that, eh?
(Click pictures to enlarge)
Released late in the production run, the Diver 100 is one of the rarer, if not the rarest 11063 cased Autavia model. Appearing just once in a 1982 Heuer catalogue, the 11063P was one of the last of the Autavia models to be produced and it’s up for debate as to whether the watch was ever released as a full production model.
The early 1980’s were a turbulent time for the owners of many watch companies, including Jack Heuer who was forced by the Swiss banks to sell his company to Piaget/Lemania in 1982, effectively ending the line for Heuer as a independent brand. With the company at stake it’s not surprising that the development and release of the last Heuer models was somewhat haphazard and not well documented.
Looking at the Diver 100 it’s clear to see what Heuer were striving for as it has a number of design elements unique to this model and ‘borrowed’ straight from the Rolex playbook. The first and most obvious are the ‘mercedes’ hands for which Rolex is famous, next is the bezel insert which mimics Rolex design, as do the large lume triangle at 12 and the round hour markers on the dial.
To add a little more uncertainty about this model into the mix, it can also be found with a decompression bezel…
Details on the origins of this bezel insert are sketchy at best. Heuer did produce the same bezel insert design for two other Autavia models, the 1163P and the 11630P, but whether this bezel insert was ever officially intended for a Diver 100 release is unknown and is a topic for debate among Heuer enthusiasts.
As you can see from the first picture, the watch arrived in pretty poor shape. The watch did tick but the crown and stem pulled straight out of the watch and the chronograph wasn’t working at all. Looking at the condition of the hands I was expecting the movement to be in poor condition but thankfully not, it was complete and with no immediate signs of corrosion.
The eagle-eyed among you may well have spotted the mismatched pushers, the reset pusher being an obvious replacement. Once out of the case it’s clear to see that the pusher is not only wrong for this model but not a Heuer pusher at all.
The fluted cap is most likely from a later Tag/Heuer model but the rest of the pusher was just cobbled together to get the watch back up and running; the wrong body, a bent oversized screw and even a piece of steel tube to take up the slack – yikes! Thankfully the owner was already on the case and had sourced a pair of replacement pushers to put things right.
The movement inside is the Heuer cal. 12, an automatic modular chronograph calibre seen in the majority of the Autavia models. I’ve covered this movement design several times on the blog, so as not to bore regular readers I’ll direct anyone interested in more details to an earlier post here. The movement was in reasonable condition and needed no more than a routine service to get it back up and running this time.
From a cosmetic perspective however, the watch needed some help. The hands had lost all their luminous filling, as had the bezel pip, all of which would need to be relumed to match the dial markers. The subdial hands too had darkened considerably. Having originally been white, I was fully expecting the paint to flake off at the lightest touch and need repainting, but after careful cleaning they were much improved, which was good news as maintaining originality is always important.
With the case cleaned, the correct pushers and a new crystal and caseback gasket installed, the watch could finally be rebuilt.
Rich.
** Many thanks to Patrik Rylander for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **
