Head turner or head tilter? One of Cartier’s most elusive designs has received a tantalizing update.

The Tank Asymétrique—or Tank Oblique or Losange as it was known during its early days—came out in 1936 as a driver’s watch. Due to its parallelogram shaped case and slanted dial, the Asymétrique would be oriented upright when one would have their hands on a steering wheel.

The Tank Asymétrique is one of the rarest of Cartier creations with very few of the original Asymétrique known to exist. The Asymétrique was revived in the mid-1990s as part of Cartier’s exclusive and limited “Collection Priveé Cartier Paris” (CPCP) line. Since then, the Asymétrique has seen a handful of releases, each time in very small production runs.

The CPCP line originally ran from 1996 to 2008, but was reintroduced a few years ago. And, it is fitting that this new Privé Collection offers a contemporary reinterpretation of the Asymétrique as well. Introduced in 2020, these new Asymétrique Skeletons were made in three sets of 100 pieces in platinum, platinum with diamonds, and rose-gold.

This ref. WGTA0043 is one of the 100 rose-gold versions. The 18k rose-gold case features a parallelogram shape with a bold three lug construction to accommodate the torsion effect caused by the skewed case. Unlike the rather small vintage versions, this Privé Collection edition is contemporary sized, with 47.15 mm x 26.10 mm dimensions.

While previous Asymétriques featured slanted ivory dials with Cartier’s iconic Roman (and in some versions Arabic) numerals, the ref. WGTA0043 sports an elegant and intriguing Soleil-finished Anthracite dial with white Arabic numerals. Since it might be confusing to read the time at first, Cartier highlighted the top and bottom by a dot under the 12 and above the 6 o'clock position.

This limited edition Tank is in like-new condition and comes on its original grey alligator-leather Cartier strap and 18 rose-gold Cartier Ardillon buckle. The watch runs on the Manufacture mechanical movement with manual winding, caliber 1917. It is one of the very few delivered to The Netherlands and is still accompanied by its original box and papers.