Autavia 1163 MH Orange Boy (or Gulf)

Heuer Autavia 1163 MH ‘Orange Boy’ or ‘Gulf’ Cal. 12. 1972

This Autavia hailed from sunny California and is absolutely beautiful. It is also considered one of the rarest. On a thread over on OTD, it is noted by one contributor that there are ‘only 15 known examples worldwide’. I don’t know if this is true, but I do know that they are like hens teeth. This one is in great shape, the orange is still bright, many suffer from fading to yellow over years in the sun.

(Updated pics show it with a Tachy insert)

The name is also shrouded in mystery, where did it come from?, is there a connection with Gulf Racing? Well, the genesis of the name is also over on OTD. It was born out of a discussion about this model many years ago, and whether it should be ‘named’ to distinguish it from other 1163’s. Suggestions flooded in, starting with OTD’s head honcho, Jeff Stein offering up ‘Orange Guy’, then someone else suggesting ‘Gulf’ due to the orange colouring. Over time, it has joined the ranks of the ‘Derek Bell’ and ‘Siffert’ Autavias to become the Orange Boy and/or Gulf, although Heuerists are more aware of the Orange Boy moniker. Unfortunately the name has suffered from ‘model creep’ (as have Derek Bell and Siffert to a lesser degree), and has been used to wrongly describe various Autavia models with orange in the design, like the 11630 with grey sub dials.

As far as anyone knows, it was only seen in the 1972 catalogue, which shows the colouring as being more red than orange. Heuer expert Arno Haslinger observed that the printing quality is poor and the oranges have come out red, which is backed up by the orange areas on the calculator model appearing red too. Catalogue image courtesy of OTD.