Heuer Autavia - Reference 2446 "Jochen Rindt" Third Execution - Mark 3 Dial - Valjoux 72 - 1968-1969

Past 11,000 RPM the howl behind my head has crossed into silence, the noise so loud now that I can no longer hear it. I only feel it, pressing through my chest, vibrating through the wheel, through my hands, through my teeth. The Lotus 72 floats over the bumps at the end of the main straight at close to 190 miles an hour, and the trees outside the cockpit blur into a single green smear. The Parabolica is coming up. The brake markers come past me. Two hundred meters to the corner. One hundred fifty. One hundred. I lift off the throttle, I stand on the brake pedal, and there is nothing under my foot. Nothing. The shaft that drives the inboard front disc has just sheared, and the car is still flat-out into a corner I cannot possibly make.

Jochen Rindt died on the afternoon of September 5, 1970, in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The Lotus tracked left into the Armco at the entry to the Parabolica, and the barrier, improperly installed, did not stop the car. He was twenty-eight and leading the Formula One World Championship by twenty points. Across the four races left in the season none of his rivals could catch his total, and so the title went to him after he was already gone, the only time in the history of the sport that a man has won it posthumously. The watch on his wrist that afternoon, and in every surviving photograph from the season that crowned him, was the Heuer Autavia reference 2446 third execution. This is one of them.

Jack Heuer was a Swiss watchmaker who loved motorsport and built his business inside it, traveling from race to race, trading stopwatches and timing gear with mechanics and drivers in exchange for a place in the paddock. He introduced the Autavia in 1962, the wrist-worn evolution of the dashboard timers his company had been building into racing cars since the 1930s, and by the late sixties it was on the wrist of nearly every driver who mattered, Andretti and Siffert and Bell among them. But it was Rindt who came to define the reference, photographed again and again with the watch over his overalls as he folded himself into Coopers and Brabhams and finally the Lotus 72 that carried him through the season he never finished.
The 2446 ran from 1962 to 1970 across three distinct dial and case executions. This is the third, produced from roughly 1968 to 1969, the screw-back Autavia with longer applied steel markers, slim plain steel hands, and the thinner bezel that closed out the series before the line gave way to the automatic Caliber 11. 

The dial is in exceptional condition, matte black, the three silver sub-registers laid out in the reverse panda configuration that became one of the most recognized faces in chronograph history: running seconds at nine, thirty-minute totalizer at three, twelve-hour register at six. The applied steel markers hold their tritium across all eleven indices with no loss, the same warm cream tone carried into the slim matchstick hands. AUTAVIA at the top, the Heuer shield beneath it, T SWISS at the base. The dial came from Singer, the Swiss maker that also supplied Rolex for the Daytona and Omega for the Speedmaster in the same years.
This watch wears the minute bezel, the only one ever seen on Rindt's wrist. The insert is black with white graduations and the triangle at twelve, in excellent condition for its age with only minor wear. The reference came with three bezels in all, the sixty-minute, the twelve-hour, and the tachymeter, but the minute is the one collectors tie to his name.

The case is the stainless steel screw-back approximately 39mm, with  beveled lugs. The acrylic crystal above the dial is in good condition. The crown is the original Heuer crown, crisp and period correct, the kind of detail so often gone on surviving examples because Heuer service routinely swapped them out through the seventies and eighties. 

Inside runs the Valjoux 72, the column wheel chronograph caliber Rolex modified for the early Daytonas and called Caliber 722 and 727, signed here by Heuer Leonidas on the bridge. It is running as it should, chronograph functions are all working properly (start, stop, reset,) it is keeping time to within about ten seconds a day. 

It comes on a tan suede rally strap with cream contrast stitching and the original Heuer signed pin buckle. The Gay Frères beads-of-rice bracelet was an optional extra on this reference, never standard, so a strap with the signed Heuer buckle is exactly how many of these left the dealer. Those buckles were among the first things to vanish across decades of strap changes, and a 2446 still wearing its correct period buckle is increasingly hard to find.

A truly special watch with a unique story, that carries with it the charm and character only six decades can create. Most 2446s of this generation lost their crowns, buckles, and bezels to service long before collectors began protecting them. Luckily this one held onto all of them.

Terms: Please review all photos carefully as they are a part of the listing. This is a vintage timepiece. Accuracy, power reserve, and water resistance are not guaranteed. Vintage watches may require periodic service. Performance can vary with wear, temperature, and position.

I am happy to service any unserviced watch listed on the site, please inquire about service charges when purchasing.

All sales final.