Louis Cartier designed the Tank in 1917, during the First World War, after studying the overhead plan of the Renault FT light tank being used on the Western Front. The rectangular case with vertical "brancards" (tracks on either side of the dial) replicates the tank's silhouette when viewed from above - the case sides are the treads, the dial the gun turret, the crown set with a sapphire cabochon. It was the first genuinely new wristwatch-case shape to depart from the round pocket-watch template that dominated early wristwatches, and it remains one of the most recognisable silhouettes in horology. Louis Cartier presented the first Tank to General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, in 1918.
Cartier released the Tank to the public in 1919 and has kept it in continuous production ever since - more than 105 years, across dozens of variants. The Tank Normale (1919), Cintrée (1921, curved to the wrist), Chinoise (1921, with horizontal bars referencing Chinese temple architecture), à Guichet (1928, jump-hour digital display), Américaine (1989, elongated curved case), Française (1996, integrated bracelet), Anglaise (2012, crown integrated into the case), Must de Cartier (1977, gold-electroplated affordable line), and Louis Cartier (the purist reissue of the original 1922 proportions) together make up the family. Every new case shape became an icon in its own right.
No other watch has been worn by so many 20th-century cultural figures. Jackie Kennedy wore a gold Tank given to her by Aristotle Onassis; Andy Warhol famously said "I don't wear a Tank to tell the time. Actually, I never even wind it. I wear a Tank because it is the watch to wear"; Muhammad Ali, Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Cocteau, Gary Cooper, Princess Diana, Michelle Obama, and Robert Redford all wore Tanks in public. Its cultural resonance puts it in a category with the Submariner and Speedmaster as one of the three universally recognised wristwatches of the 20th century.
The current collection centres on three references: the Tank Louis Cartier (the purist, closest to the 1922 LC design, manual-wind in gold), the Tank Must (entry-level steel or gold-plated, quartz, with coloured dial options including the instantly popular 2021 "monochrome" red, green, and blue lacquered dials), and the Tank Française (integrated bracelet, redesigned in 2023 with a new slimmer case and integrated steel bracelet). Retail ranges from ~$3,200 (Tank Must steel) to ~$30,000+ (Tank à Guichet Jump-Hour in gold). The Cintrée has been reissued in limited batches for platinum and gold collectors.
