TAG Heuer Autavia is one of the largest new watch releases of the year for vintage fans. The result of the Autavia Cup competition, which asked fans to vote on their favorite vintage model for TAG Heuer to recreate, the watch takes the brash ’60s racing style of the original and makes it the basis of a thoroughly contemporary watch. We showed you the prototype last year and gave you the full specs of the final model when it debuted officially at Baselworld. But that’s just the beginning of the story.
Jeff Stein – founder of OnTheDash, and Talking replica Watches veteran – is the authority on all things vintage Heuer. So, obviously, when I heard he’d taken delivery of his 2017 Autavia, I knew we needed to talk. Luckily, Jeff is a generous man and offered to do an on-the-record interview after spending some serious wrist-time with his new watch.
We talked about how Jeff first heard about the new Autavia, his involvement in the process, and why, even as a hardcore Heuer guy, he was still able to find some surprises in the new watch.
My introduction to the watch was in November 2015. I was in New York for the replica TAG Heuer’s releasing of the Connected watch, and was just sort of hanging out with the guys from TAG Heuer Replica. I had known many of them for a while as pen pals and from swapping emails and such. This was the first time that I had met the social and electronic media guys, and they introduced me to Jean-Claude Biver, and we began talking about the recent surge in interest in the vintage Autavias. 
Of course, he’d had the thought before, but I suggested to him that this would be the perfect time to do a reissue of the Autavia. Therefore, we started looking at my website and searching for the various versions, and talking about which ones collectors were chasing, which ones had the value in the market, etc. He basically looked at me and said, “Well, you guys, the collecting community, tell me which one you want and you’ll have it in early 2017.”
He said there were two conditions. It had to be a traditional round case, the style of the 1960s, and it had to be an acceptable modern size. He threw out 42 millimeters, which is exactly what it turned out to be.
