1970s Heuer Autavia 11630 Kenyan Air Force aka “Shauntavia”

The name of this watch comes from the first use of this instrument. At the time, it was the first dashboard meter for automobiles, aeroplanes and zeppelins. It therefore takes the letters of AUTomobile and AVIAtion to form AUTAVIA.

Some of the most unusual and charismatic Autavia’s of the 1970’s known on the market are those issued to the Kenyan Air Force, such as the present Autavia reference 11630. This watch was produced by Heuer in a very small batch exclusively for the Kenyan Air Force as we can distinguish on the back of the case by the engraving “KAF-414”.

Additional particularity, this piece is in the rarest design of this reference (around 30 estimated) with the arabic dial, made especially for this model. Also met in some manual Autavia, ref. 73663, arabic dials are nicknamed “Shauntavia”, after the man who studied them at first. Unlike manual autavias arabic dials, the dial made for the KAF 11630 is glossy and bears the mention “Automatic”.

This timepiece is powered by the robust, reliable and precise Heuer.12 automatic calibre.