Heuer would become the world leader in timekeeping equipment in 1964 when the company merged with one of its competitors, Leonidas. It would be an exciting time for the industry as electronic devices were offering new levels of accuracy and in fact it would be Heuer who would debut the first device capable of 1/1000th of a second accuracy in 1966, called the Microtimer.

While the looming threat of what quartz might mean for mechanical watches had not come into view yet, these two different sectors happily co-existed. For Heuer this meant continued investment in the mechanical stopwatches, and in 1968 the company would present what would be the ultimate example of the philosophy, the reference 11.401.

With 1/5th of a second precision, a split-second complication, time-telling function and a lightweight aluminum case in the new “Century” design language, the model was not only a beautiful thing to hold, but an incredible piece of equipment to use. Together with its 1/10th second sibling the reference 11.402, these two stopwatches would become firm fixtures of the pit lane and even Jean Campiche would use one as a backup to the Le Mans Centigraph during F1 weekends timing for Ferrari.

Quartz would soon take the mantle for accuracy and reliability with Heuer themselves debuting famed models such as the Microsplit just a few years later, but now when we look back it is clear that models such as the 11.401, often in their distinctive red casing, were the true pinnacle of mechanical timekeeping devices.