Tissot PRS 516 watches

The Tissot PRS 516 is the brand's racing-themed line of sports watches and chronographs, a modern version of the PR 516 of the 1960s. Tissot started the PR line in 1956, and the letters stood for "Particulièrement Robustes", particularly robust. In 1965 the Swiss designer Lucien Gurtner reworked the collection and gave it a steel bracelet with large perforations meant to recall a racing car's steering wheel.

The PR 516 was sold as a driver's watch. The Swiss racing driver Harry Zweifel worked with Tissot from 1958, the Peruvian rally driver Henry Bradley painted the watch's name on his Ferrari, and Roger Moore wore a PR 516 as James Bond in Live and Let Die (1973). Tissot brought the name back as the PRS 516, the S for "sporty", by 2004, when the revival came as a quartz chronograph and an automatic with a steering wheel cut out of the caseback. Its strap was punched with holes that recall a steering wheel and driving gloves.

The automatics without a chronograph come at 40 and 42 mm, the 42 mm T044.430 with a rotating bezel, and the Powermatic 80 versions at 42 mm (T131.430) and 45 mm (T100.430). The Powermatic 80 is an automatic derived from the ETA 2824-2, slowed to 21,600 vibrations per hour for an 80-hour power reserve. The quartz chronographs run from 40 to 45 mm and stay around 11 to 12 mm thick, with tachymeter bezels. The automatic chronographs are thicker: the 45 mm T100.427 and T131.627 come close to 16 mm. The PRS 516 Extreme Automatic (T079.427) is a 44.4 mm watch with a tachymeter bezel.

Steel is the base, worn on a bracelet or the perforated strap. Black and rose-gold PVD versions appear among the quartz chronographs and the Powermatic 80s, and the T925.427.46.051.01 automatic chronograph pairs steel with rose gold.