Description
Three years after the 42mm original sold through on hype alone, TAG Heuer renews its three-way collaboration with Mai Ikuzawa and George Bamford's Bamford Watch Department — this time on the far more desirable 39mm Carrera Glassbox Chronograph platform. Limited to 150 pieces at EUR 10,450, the new reference CBS221M.EB0435 translates the graphics of Team Ikuzawa's 1970s–80s Roadmaster timing stopwatches onto one of the most acclaimed modern Carreras.
Team Ikuzawa was founded by Tetsu Ikuzawa, the legendary Japanese driver whose career ran through the Japanese Grand Prix, Formula 3, Formula 2, Le Mans and Porsche factory drives. His daughter Mai has turned the team's red-and-white identity into a cultural brand spanning motorsport, design and fashion — and this watch is its purest horological expression yet.
Design
The 39mm brushed-and-polished steel case is unchanged from the standard Glassbox, crowned by the deeply domed sapphire that spills over the sloping flange and eliminates the bezel. The dial is white with a Clou de Paris (hobnail) texture, and — unlike the standard model — the applied indices are replaced by printed markings for a deliberate stopwatch aesthetic. Red dominates: the lacquered hour and minute hands, the central chronograph hand, the logos, the crown ring, and even every numeral on the angled date wheel. The running-seconds register is deleted so the Team Ikuzawa signature can sit above 6 o'clock, leaving a clean bicompax layout of 30-minute and 12-hour counters; there is no tachymetre. The sapphire caseback carries Team Ikuzawa and Bamford engravings plus the individual number, and the watch ships in a mechanics'-toolbox package with a seven-row steel bracelet, a perforated white leather strap and a white textile strap striped in racing red.
Specifications
- Reference: CBS221M.EB0435
- Case diameter: 39mm; thickness: 13.9mm; lug-to-lug: 46mm
- Case material: stainless steel, brushed and polished
- Crystal: Glassbox domed sapphire, double AR coating; sapphire caseback
- Water resistance: 100m
- Dial: white Clou de Paris texture, black flange, printed indices, red accents, angled date display
- Movement: in-house calibre TH20-10, automatic chronograph
- Architecture: column wheel, vertical clutch, bi-directional winding
- Frequency: 28,800vph (4Hz)
- Power reserve: 80 hours
- Functions: hours, minutes, date, chronograph with 30-minute and 12-hour counters
- Bracelet: seven-row steel with folding clasp + white perforated leather and white/red textile straps
- Limited edition: 150 pieces, individually numbered
- Price: EUR 10,450 / CHF 9,900 / USD 10,500
What's Exciting
The 2023 Ikuzawa Carrera was a 42mm Heuer 02 watch; this one is built on the 39mm Glassbox with the newer TH20-10 — the column-wheel, vertical-clutch, 80-hour calibre that anchors TAG Heuer's current mechanical credibility — in the case size the collecting community actually asked for. Deleting the running seconds to make room for the team signature is exactly the kind of period-correct move vintage Heuer racing chronographs made for sponsors half a century ago, and the printed indices push it further into instrument territory. With only 150 pieces against real demand for anything Glassbox, this is one of the few sub-CHF 10k limited editions this summer with genuine scarcity logic.
History
The Carrera was created by Jack Heuer in 1963 as a driver's chronograph, and the Glassbox generation launched in 2023 for its 60th anniversary revived its original proportions and legibility to critical acclaim. Tetsu Ikuzawa raced from the 1960s onward, becoming one of Japan's first internationally recognised drivers; Team Ikuzawa's Heuer-timed pit wall made the partnership historically natural. The first TAG Heuer x Team Ikuzawa by Bamford Carrera arrived in 2023; this second chapter tightens the concept around the Roadmaster stopwatch legacy that started it all.
Sources
- Monochrome Watches — Introducing: The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Team Ikuzawa
- Gear Patrol — TAG Heuer Adds Some 1980s Japanese Swagger to the Carrera
- Time and Tide — TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Team Ikuzawa
- Worn & Wound — TAG Heuer Introduces a New Glassbox Carrera with Team Ikuzawa and Bamford
