There are driver’s watches, there are car watches, there are motoring watches – and then there’s the Heuer Carrera.

True, it wasn’t the first chronograph made specifically for “automobilists”, or even the first watch to be designed with a motoring bent. But there’s no denying that the Carrera has gone down in history as one of the most evocative, covetable and storied timepieces of its genre.

It burst on to the scene in December 1963, making this its 60th anniversary year and TAG Heuer – as Heuer became in 1985 – quite rightly plans to push the boat out with a string of events to celebrate it.

The first of these took place in January in Singapore with the launch of a limited-edition Carrera – a watch that harks back to the second series of the model produced during the late 1960s.

If you’re unfamiliar with the full story of how the Carrera came in to being, its existence can be traced back to 1962 when Jack Heuer (great grandson of Heuer founder, Edouard) found himself at the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race, where the legendary Rodriguez brothers were driving for Ferrari.

Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez were idolised as Mexico’s most famous drivers, and Heuer struck up a conversation with their parents in the pits.

Soon, talk turned to the country’s notorious road race La Carrera Panamericana – and Heuer immediately became enthralled by the story of the event. A story that went something like this:

In 1950, the Mexican government decided to celebrate becoming the first Latin American country to complete its section of the 19,000-mile Pan American Highway by organising a no-holds-barred motor race along the road itself – with the only eligible vehicles being five-seat sedans.

The inaugural grid comprised professional drivers, wannabe racers, cabbies and countless other amateurs, with the event taking place in nine stages across five days, starting near El Paso in Texas and heading south to the finish line in Chiapas on the Mexico-Guatemala border.

It attracted 132 entries, with the winner of the $17,000 purse being American Hershel McGriff, whose $1,900 Oldsmobile 88 proved more nimble than the many larger, more powerful cars in the field, enabling it to pull ahead on the tight, mountainous sections of the course.

In that first event alone, three competitors and one spectator were killed, instantly giving La Carrera (Spanish for “The Race”) a reputation for being irresistibly dangerous – but during the following four years it drew some of the world’s top drivers and produced some of the most thrilling four-wheeled competition ever seen.

The route was littered with natural hazards (Mercedes works driver Karl Kling got a vulture through the windscreen of his 300SL “Gullwing” in the 1952 event) and deaths proved to be frequent due to the prodigious speeds. In 1954, Umberto Maglioli won after completing the 2,100-mile course at an average of 138mph, while other famous competitors included Juan Manual Fangio (1953’s winner, driving a Lancia) and top American racer Phil Hill.

The race was scrapped after the 1954 event, with 27 fatalities over the five editions, but a combination of its notoriety and that evocative Carrera name convinced Jack Heuer that it would be perfect as the inspiration for a new driver’s watch.

He quickly adopted “Carrera” for the company’s next chronograph design and soon registered the exclusive right to use it on watches – following the lead of sportscar maker Porsche, which chose it to identify its best models after the giant-killing 550 Spyder scored class wins in the 1953 and ’54 Carrera Panamericana.

By December 1963, the new Heuer Carrera driver’s chronograph was ready for launch. It featured a 36mm steel case, a Valjoux 72 manual-wind movement and the reference number 2447D.

Known as the “Carrera-12”, due to its 12-hour totaliser at six o’clock, the new watch retailed in the US at $98.45 – and quickly became the default choice of both professional drivers and enthusiastic amateurs. As the years passed, the Carrera name appeared on numerous different designs of Heuer watch, ranging from simple “time only” models to automatic chronographs with dual time zone and date functions.

In every case, however, the Carrera remained a rugged and functional “tool watch” aimed specifically at drivers.

Over two decades of continuous production, Carreras of one sort or another were seen on the wrists of the world’s leading racers, including Bruce McLaren, Jo Siffert, Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni, to name but a few.

In the early 1980s, the Carrera line was deemed to have served its purpose, and production stopped. But strong demand for its return resulted in its revival in 1998 with a “Classics” series based on the 1960s originals. The reborn Carrera proved to be a major success and the name has gone on to be applied to a wide range of TAG Heuer driving watches over the past 25 years.

Few, however, have captured the spirit of the original models quite as successfully as this new edition, which features the silver and black “panda” dial design that first appeared on the Reference 244SN version of the late 1960s.

The 60th anniversary watch comes replete with 244SN features, such as stripes on the hands and hour markers for extra clarity, double “stop dots” at 12 to confirm the chronograph is zeroed, and high visibility white dial markings.

Authenticity is also preserved in the use of only the “Heuer” name (as mentioned previously, it only changed to TAG Heuer in 1985), while other old-school touches can be seen in the beige “lume” (the luminescent treatment of the hands and markers) and vintage-style chronograph push-pieces.

It’s a more contemporary story around the back, however, which gets a sapphire crystal centre held in place by a screw-down collar engraved with the relevant edition number of each watch – just 600 of which will be made.

And what’s really great about the new “panda” is that it costs less than a similar vintage model but, at 39mm, is slightly larger and more practical – and a whole lot more robust.

Ideal, then, for wearing in the thrilling – but regulated for safety – recreations of La Carrera Panamericana that still take place today.

TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph 60^th Anniversary Edition, £6,100; tagheuer.com