Cartier Tank à Guichets Review: A Quirky Art Deco Classic Returns

Usually, when we think of Cartier, our thoughts turn to classical luxury and elegance rather than military-style minimalism. However, the world-famous maison and “jeweler of kings” has long dabbled in both worlds, at least when it comes to watchmaking. And there is no better example of a timepiece that embodies that ethos than the rather unexpected headliner of Cartier’s new releases at the 2025 Watches & Wonders salon: the Cartier Privé Tank à Guichets. 

The Tank à Guichets, of course, is an evolution of the original Cartier Tank watch, which is itself a historical example of a modern luxury item with clearly military inspiration (it’s right there in the name, actually).  Throughout its prestigious history since being unveiled in 1917 by its inventor, Louis Cartier, the Tank has evolved in ways that are both subtle and revolutionary and has appeared in forms of which many of us might not even be aware. Some of these more exotic and unusual Tank pieces have found their way back into the main collection in recent years as part of the Cartier Privé series, and it is from this series that the new Guichets, in its three distinctive iterations, does indeed hail. 

The Original Cartier Tank

But let’s start off by establishing where this watch’s design legacy began. The classic, original Cartier Tank, which didn’t actually go into serial production until 1919, derived its name and its rectangular, curvilinear case shape from the World War I-era Renault FT-17 tank used by the French army. Designed by France’s Renault automobile company, its fully rotating turret of armaments made it one of the most influential tank designs in history. The Tank watch took some cues from its famously square-cased predecessor, the Santos, but the clean lines and gently sloping profile of its case, which integrated harmoniously into its leather strap, gave it an elegant personality of its own, one that appealed to a wide range of customers, both male and female, in that dawning age of the wristwatch and well into the 20th Century. 

With its dial’s rectangular ring of Roman hour numerals, interior railroad minute track, blued sword hands, and  beaded crown with blue sapphire cabochon, it  was also one of the first and most enduring examples of the influence of Art Deco, which thrived in the U.S. and Europe throughout the 1920s and into the ‘30s, on wristwatch design. Choosing a rectangle, rather than a more traditional round shape, for the case, was also a bold statement that the Tank was a true original, designed to be worn on the wrist, as opposed to other early wristwatches at the time, which were essentially round pocket watches repurposed for wrist wear. Perhaps fittingly, the recipient of the first prototype Cartier Tank watch was U.S. General John “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the Allied forces, which included France, in World War I.

Cartier Tank à Guichets Origins

The Tank à Guichets variation followed in 1928, and it was a clear departure from its ancestor; also notably, like very few other watches at the time, it didn’t tell time in a traditional, analog fashion. Instead, its hours were displayed by Arabic numerals on a disk in a window-like aperture at 12 o’clock, jumping forward once per hour, while its minutes rolled along on a smaller disk at 6 o’clock, visible through another aperture, this one a semicircular arc. The Tank à Guichets (which means, appropriately, “tank with windows”) had no traditional dial, per se, but rather a flat, brushed, solid surface on the front of the gold case, with the aforementioned time displays being the only access to the disks underneath. The crown for winding the movement was placed unconventionally at 12 o’clock. The Tank a Guichets is believed to be one of the rarest of the many Cartier Tank variations that have emerged over the decades. Its most famous historical adherent was legendary jazz bandleader Duke Ellington, who was photographed wearing one around 1930. 

While the original watch was not actually made for use by soldiers, its solid, “closed” case, minus a breakable glass crystal over the dial, took some inspiration from the cases of early World War I “trench watches,” which had a similar, utilitarian design and digital jump-hour movements. The Cartier Tank à Guichets spun off into other variations of its own throughout the 1930s, offering small changes from the original that included the shape of the “windows,” the placement of the crown, and the case materials. In the modern era, Cartier has revived the model in a series of limited editions, first in 1997 (Cartier’s 150th anniversary year), and again in 2005 as part of the exclusive CPCP (Collection Privée Cartier Paris) collection. The most recent version comes, as noted above, as the latest entry in the current, vintage-inspired Privé collection, following up other cult-classic Cartier re-editions in previous years including the Tank Normale, the Tonneau, and the Tortue.

Cartier Tank à Guichets Case and Strap

The case of the latest Tank à Guichets, in keeping with current watch-world trends of being as period-appropriate as possible, is more true to the 1928 original than previous modern revivals of the model. The crown is back at its oddball position at the top of the case — after it had been moved to a more traditional 3 o’clock side position in the 1997 anniversary edition — and the front surface has the classical brushed finishing that gives the watch a stark and almost military look. The dimensions are 37.6mm long by 24.8mm wide and a very understated 6mm thick — a little lengthier than some previous models, with a more pronounced curve to the brancards that are emblematic of the rectangular Tank case. As you’d probably expect, this watch’s case has a very minimal water resistance.

The case comes in four distinctive executions; three are non-limited editions, one in yellow gold, with green details (i.e., the numerals and indexes on the hour and minute-track disks) and a dark green strap; another in rose gold, with those same elements in dark gray; and another in platinum, paired with a burgundy-colored leather strap and enhanced with burgundy-colored numerals. The fourth is a limited edition of 200 pieces, also in platinum, but here fitted on a black alligator strap and featuring a literal “twist” on the design of the apertures, which we’ll explain below. 

Cartier Tank à Guichets Time Display

This is the section where we’d usually go into detail about the watch’s dial, but that description applies only in the loosest terms here. So let’s take note instead of the two different time displays on the limited edition versus the unlimited models. As alluded to previously, the front face of the Tank à Guichets is about as minimalist as you can get: the closed-up design does not even allow for a Cartier logo anywhere on the surface. As per Cartier’s legendary attention to small detail, the windows are elegantly faceted, and the disks — both the jumping hour and the “dragging” minutes, the latter indicated subtly by a small arrow pointer on the window's edge — feature numerals in a retro, Art Deco font that call to mind the period of this watch’s original release.

Where the limited and non-limited editions differ is in the placement of the minutes. The former three models offer a classic, symmetrical layout, with the hours in the traditional 12 o’clock spot and the minutes arc directly below at 6 o’clock. The latter, nicknamed “Oblique,” moves the hour display to 10 o’clock and the minutes display to 4 o’clock, even going so far as to rotate both disks 90 degrees, making for a very quirky, asymmetrical look that makes up in design audacity for what it arguably lacks in sheer, intuitive legibility. 

Cartier Tank à Guichets/Movement

Cartier developed a new movement for the Privé Tank à Guichets, the manually wound, ultra-thin Caliber 9755 MC (the initials stand for “Manufacture Cartier”). Delving a bit deeper into this movement’s origin, one discovers that it’s actually based on the Piaget Caliber 430P — not overly surprising, as Piaget and Cartier share ownership in the Richemont Group and Piaget has a long history and nearly unmatched expertise in crafting ultra-thin movements; this one is a mere 2.1mm thick. Along with the modifications that Cartier made in-house to accommodate the jumping hours and dragging minutes disks, Caliber 9755 MC offers a 21,600 vph frequency, 18 jewels, and a 43-hour power reserve. 

Pricing and Variations

With its very unusual design — which can be described as early military, Art Deco, or a mashup of both — the Cartier Privé Tank à Guichets is obviously not a watch for everyone. And there are very few watches out there today that can even be mentioned in the same category for comparison. The only one that comes to mind is another 2025 release, from British watchmaker Bremont, the Terra Nova Jumping Hour — thus far available in bronze and steel rather than the precious metals that Cartier uses here, and which accordingly goes more all-in on the model’s military-heritage design elements. Cartier’s models are indisputably aimed at the luxury crowd: the yellow-gold and rose-gold non-limited models are priced at $47,700, while the platinum model is $55,500. The 200-piece “Oblique” limited edition will run you $61,000. You can learn more at cartier.com.