One element of the ’80s F1 rubber straps that has not carried over to the new collection, though, is the V-shaped grooves on the bottom portion of the original straps. TAG made the ’80s rubber straps extra long so surfers and divers could wear the F1s over wet suits. The V-shaped grooves meant these could easily be cut down to a desired length—particularly useful if you were just going to wear it on the wrist and not in the waves. Clearly, TAG doesn’t want anybody cutting up its new rubber straps.
I’ve wanted a classic original orange TAG F1 for years, and finally managed to pick one up earlier this year, although it is the later WA1213 model. Eddy Burgener, who designed the TAG F1 in the ’80s, has stated that bright, popping colors were key to the original collection, and that the models were not, initially at least, thought of as being linked to driving but to water sports instead.
Speaking to watch site Hodinkee last year, Burgener said TAG was “trying to create a new style of watches for American surfers, divers, and other young folks heading for the beach,” so the brief was to create a new watch that was fun, colorful, and young, emulating the bright surfboards and the clothes surfers were wearing at the time.
To nail the bright colors, Burgener stated that the case had to be synthetic, which then added the complication of trying to make a diver’s watch using synthetic materials, something that was incredibly difficult at the time. In the end, they settled on a mixture of fiberglass and plastic as the base material for increased hardness and stability.
TAG’s solar F1s now sport a form of bioplastic—a more eco-friendly castor-based polyamide which the brand has named TH-Polylight—replacing the old “Arnite” thermoplastic. As before, this is molded over a steel inner core, making for a sports watch that’s more robust than most plastic-cased equivalents.