Heuer has now become a household name - albeit under different ownership than founded it, namely TAG Heuer, which took over in the mid-1980s. 
 
Shortly before TAG's takeover of Heuer in the mid-1980s, it produced a line of legendary divers, first in Monin, France, with automatic movements, and subsequently in Switzerland with Swiss quartz movements - like the Heuer diver here, a full-lume 1982 Heuer Ref. 980.031 "The Living Daylights" matte black PVD dive watch, on its original likewise black PVD Heuer-signed bracelet.
 
Up front, this watch is a bit of a mystery - the caseback is from a 38mm Heuer 980.026 "Black Coral" / "Point Break," which features a black dial, not a full-lume dial.  We assess either the caseback is incorrect - and this is a 980.031 - or a previous owner swapped out the black dial in favor of a full-lume one, making this a 980.026.  Regardless, the dive watch itself is in exceptional condition, as is the dial - zero PVD wear on the watch head itself. 
 
The matte black Heuer Ref. 980 diver here represents old-school Heuer design, in a mid-sized package.  1980's TAG Heuer divers, in particular divers like this one, are not common in any condition, and for good reason - they represent a bygone era for Heuer.
 
Of note, James Bond wore the same Ref. 980.031 model in "The Living Daylights" (1987).  The watch doesn't get much screentime and can only barely be seen during the opening sequence in Gibraltar, when Bond - played by Timothy Dalton - is riding on on the roof of a Land Rover Series III.  Oh - and Keanu Reeves also wore the quite similar Ref. 980.026 in a little action thriller film named "Point Break" (1991).
 
Unlike its other matte-colored PVD siblings, Heuer failed to release an all-matte black PVD "Jumbo" oversized dive variant - the 980.026 here, with its 38mm case, was the largest size Heuer produced in this finish, which served as the standard "mans full size" for Heuer and later TAG Heuer dive watches.
 
Given the parlous state of the Swiss watchmaking industry in the early 1980s, it likely made sense to TAG Heuer to eek out as many model variants as possible using as few unique parts as possible – however while the 1000 and 2000 series were popular, lasting several decades, the 3000 was only on sale for just over five.  The 3000 design is essentially a development of the successful 2000-series launched in 1982, with the 3000 featuring squared curves to create a more technical looking watch.
 
TAG Heuer managed to scale down all the elements of its highly popular 980 dive watch series - produced beginning in 1979 through 1982 - to make a stunning dive watch, never an easy feat.  The attention to detail and quality is remarkable, and seems more of an achievement with these smaller Heuer cases.  Heuer built these divers to high standards, and rendered these waterproof to 200m – just like their elder siblings.
 
Per Hodinkee in "Why The Heuer Diver Professional Deserves A Lot More Credit Than It Gets," "Its stunning success was unexpected and came at the best possible time for the company.  In Jack Heuer’s own words: 'We could not imagine that this model would be the very watch that was to help the company recover.'  Surprisingly, this glorious hero was not a chronograph – hell, most of the time it's powered by a quartz movement.  So let's settle this injustice and look at a relatively obscure diving watch, despite it being a bestseller from 1979 to this very day.  This is the Heuer Diver Professional."
 
For a brief history of these amazing Heuer divers, we turn to a fascinating Hodinkee article, “A Personal Note: Marking Time With A Humble Heuer” - “In 1980, Heuer decided it was time to build a proper dive watch.  Sure, years earlier, it had fitted its "Automotive-Aviation" Autavia chronograph with a diving bezel, but the brand was largely focused on motorsports watches, which is where it had built its reputation."
 
But in the late 1970s, as Jack Heuer tells it in his autobiography, “The Times Of My Life (2013),” Heuer was at a sporting goods trade show in Europe and was approached by a diving equipment company having trouble finding quality dive watches.
 
Before that fateful show, Heuer was not doing well as a company and its situation had begun deteriorating as early as late 1974 (along with most of the Swiss watchmaking industry, badly hit by the quartz crisis caused by Seiko).  Quartz watches were more technically advanced than mechanical watches, and at a lower price point too, making them fierce competitors for the traditional Swiss companies.
 
It is in this grim context Jack Heuer saw an opportunity at that 1979 sporting goods trade show.  Heuer got the idea to address a recurrent complaint voiced regarding the difficulty in finding reliable private label watches for underwater sports – Heuer’s expertise at this time was racing chronographs, but it took the challenge regardless, and teamed up with French supplier G. Monnin.
 
Per Heuer, “To our great surprise our new diving watches were very well received by the market."  So much so, in fact, that the following year Heuer began offering the Diver Professional in four different sizes and a multitude of dial configurations.  And let us not forget the joy of wearing full-lume watches!
 
This Heuer diver comes on its original matte black PVD Heuer-signed bracelet, and with nylon strap, spring bar tool, and rugged travel case.