Five hundred watches, two start times, and one dial trick worth slowing down for. TAG Heuer and Time+Tide built the Sundowner II around a black wave-pattern dial whose ridges get flooded with clear lacquer and finished flat.
The watch wearing that dial is the Aquaracer Professional 300 in sandblasted Grade 2 titanium, 42mm across, 12mm thick and rated to 300 metres. Rose gold plating warms up the hands and indexes, and a grey ceramic bezel keeps the whole thing muted, more shoreline at dusk than dive-computer bright.
TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300 × Time+Tide Sundowner II, Black Rubber Strap (WBP5184.FT6257)
42mm sandblasted Grade 2 titanium case · Calibre TH31-01, 80-hour power reserve · Limited to 450 numbered pieces
Price: $5,100
Where to buy: Buy at TAG Heuer
Sales open Thursday, November 12, in two waves of their own. Priority access starts at 11AM EST, the global release follows at 3PM EST, and the only doors are Time+Tide and TAG Heuer.
How the wave dial gets its flat shine
Start with a brass dial blank and a stamp. The wave pattern is pressed into the metal, ridge after ridge running across a black sunray finish, the same dial family TAG Heuer fits across the mechanical Aquaracer line. On a standard watch those ridges stay raised. They catch light in stripes as the wrist turns, bright-dark-bright, and the texture stays something you can see working every time the angle changes on a walk from shade into sun.
The Sundowner II fills the ridges in. Transparent lacquer floods the stamped pattern until the surface levels out, and the finished dial comes up glossy and flat from straight on. Tilt it, and the waves show through the clear coat, lit from underneath like water moving over sand. Up close, the surface works like glass laid over corduroy, calm in reflection and busy in pattern.
The Time+Tide name sits on the dial beside the TAG Heuer shield, printed small enough to miss at arm’s length.
Rose gold can read dressy, and here it works as contrast instead. White Super-LumiNova fills the hands and indexes, so the watch still reads at depth and at night, while the gold frames the dial rather than starring in it. Small manufacturing detour, outsized effect: the dial keeps its texture and loses its glare points in the same pass.
Titanium, ceramic and a bezel that stays quiet
Grade 2 titanium carries the case, sandblasted to a soft grey that shrugs off the shine of polished steel. The case runs 42mm wide, 12mm thick and 48mm from lug to lug, on 21mm lugs. Sandblasting hides the small scuffs a dive watch collects at door frames and desk edges, which suits a watch built to be worn hard rather than kept in a box.
The twelve-sided bezel turns one way, as a diver’s bezel should, and its insert is grey sandblasted ceramic with the minute scale picked out in rose tones. A steel screw-down crown seals the case to 300 metres, three times the depth a recreational diver will ever ask of it.
Everything outside stays matte, warm or grey.
A chronometer with no date to hide
Inside sits the Calibre TH31-01, an automatic certified by the COSC as a chronometer, running at 28,800 vibrations per hour on 30 jewels, with 80 hours of power reserve wound into it. Take the watch off on Friday night and it’s still running on Tuesday morning. That reserve is the practical kind of luxury, the kind you notice on a Monday.
TAG Heuer built this version of the calibre with no date at all. No window interrupts the dial, no cyclops bubble rides the sapphire crystal, and no ghost crown position pretends a date hides somewhere in the gear train. The Sundowner II is the only current automatic Aquaracer sold this way, and the only titanium Aquaracer the brand sells on a rubber strap.
Two editions, two clocks on Thursday
The split is lopsided by design. The black rubber strap version, reference WBP5184.FT6257, runs to 450 numbered pieces at $5,100, on a curved-end strap you trim to size, closed by a titanium deployant clasp with micro-adjustment built in.
The bracelet version, reference WBP5185.BF0010, stops at 50 pieces. Fifty. Its three-row bracelet is sandblasted titanium matched link for link to the case, and the price climbs to $5,750.
Every watch in both runs carries its individual number engraved on the titanium caseback, next to the Time+Tide logo in relief and the limited-edition marking. Priority registration is open now at Time+Tide, and registered buyers get a private purchase link four hours before the global window opens. The Watch Discovery Studios in London, New York and Melbourne carry the watch beside the online shop, for anyone who wants the metal in hand before the clock runs out.
The first Sundowner set the pace
Two years ago the first Sundowner took the same sunset palette to a 40mm watch on the Aquaracer Professional 200 platform, solar powered and worn on a green NATO strap, limited to 250 pieces at a friendlier price. It sold out inside 24 hours. The sequel keeps the colors and the titanium, then changes nearly everything else.
The inspiration moved coasts too, from the outback at dusk to the shoreline at Sellicks Beach, south of Adelaide. The wave dial is that move, stamped into brass and sealed under lacquer.
| Reference, bracelet | WBP5185.BF0010 |
| Reference, rubber strap | WBP5184.FT6257 |
| Case | 42mm × 12mm × 48mm lug to lug, Grade 2 titanium, sandblasted |
| Bezel | Unidirectional, grey sandblasted ceramic insert |
| Dial | Black sunray, stamped wave pattern under transparent lacquer, no date |
| Hands and indexes | Rose gold plated, Super-LumiNova filled |
| Crystal | Sapphire, no cyclops magnifier |
| Movement | Calibre TH31-01 automatic, COSC-certified chronometer, no-date configuration |
| Power reserve | 80 hours |
| Frequency | 28,800 vph (4 Hz), 30 jewels |
| Water resistance | 300 metres, screw-down crown |
| Lug width | 21mm |
| Edition size | 50 on bracelet, 450 on rubber, individually numbered |
| Price | $5,750 bracelet / $5,100 rubber strap |
TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300 × Time+Tide Sundowner II, Titanium Bracelet (WBP5185.BF0010)
Three-row sandblasted titanium bracelet · No-date COSC chronometer calibre, individually numbered caseback · One of 50 pieces
Price: $5,750
Where to buy: Buy at TAG Heuer
Choose on the strap, the number and the clock. Rubber gets you the same case, calibre and dial with 450 chances at $5,100. The bracelet is the collector’s bet, fifty pieces at $5,750, and the priority window will do its work long before the global one opens. Either way, the dial is the reason to hurry.
