How the Rolex GMT-Master defined jet set style
Borna BošnjakYou could pick any number of watches from Rolex’s catalogue and call them iconic. It’s one of the rare few brands that can claim the moniker for multiple of its creations, but answering which is the most iconic is a whole other topic altogether. In my mind, though, there is one watch that captures the glitz and glamour so often associated with the Crown, while also combining the utilitarian brutishness the brand built its early foundations on. Rolex is a pioneer in achieving that ideal with the introduction of the Oyster case, and that advance has borne much fruit. Sure, the Submariner, initially born as a diver’s tool, has made its way onto many a Martini-hosting, tux-clad law firm partner’s wrist – for better or worse – but it’s the Rolex GMT-Master and its many iterations do just that, but better, if you ask me.
Jet-setting pioneer
At the dawn of commercial aviation, airline passengers dressed up to fly. Smart suits and dresses were de rigueur. Nowadays, you’re more likely to be seated next to a fellow traveller rocking shorts, a Salt Life t-shirt, and flip-flops, noisily chewing on their complimentary pretzels, and hell-bent on encroaching whatever shred of personal space you might have left. It’s an experience that’s become decidedly more Greyhound than grey flannel. But back in the 1950s, international travel by jet was a very new thing. The idea that one could travel from New York to London or Paris in a matter of hours was nothing short of revolutionary, hence the term “jet set” was coined. And to help their pilots keep track of multiple time zones, Pan American Airlines approached Rolex for a solution, and thus the GMT-Master reference 6542 was born in 1954. Rolex took its Turn-O-Graph ref. 6202 as the base and replaced its bezel with the now-iconic red and blue, while modifying the 1030 calibre with an additional 24-hour driving wheel and date wheel.
The design of the ref. 6542 is instantly recognisable as a Rolex GMT, namely for its red and blue Bakelite bezel which it pioneered. It measured in at 38mm in diameter, and over its four-year production run between 1955 and 1959, it used three different movements (1036, 1065, 1066), and of course came with the smorgasbord of tiny changes in design that make fanatical vintage Rolex collectors drool. Think pink dial text, elongated hour hands, and varying case finishing. The 50-metre water resistant cases were available in both steel and gold, with the latter being particularly rare and unique for their single-colour brown Bakelite bezels and alpha handset.
The ref. 6542’s most recognisable feature – the Bakelite bezel – was also its Achilles’ heel. The dials were naturally painted with radioactive paint, and so were the numerals in the bezels. Despite the horrors the Radium Girls suffered in the 1920s and ’30s, radioactive dials continued to be used for a few decades, including the first Rolex GMTs. As a result, Rolex was sued by U.S. Navy veteran Willard M. Mound for its use of strontium-90 in 1961. Rolex responded by replacing the Bakelite bezels with metal ones, or alternatively scrape the radioactive paint and replace it with tritium. This, along with the fact that their construction was inherently brittle, makes original Bakelite-bezelled 6542s rare.
But what of its utility? GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time, the time reference standard of the day, and this new watch had the capability of simultaneously tracking both a home and a local time zone. In addition to the hours, minutes, and seconds, the GMT-Master added another hand to track the second time zone, geared by the new movement to travel once around the dial every 24 hours, but slaved to the main hour hand. The 24-hour bidirectional bezel was new, too, divided by half into red “day” and blue “night” sections, and nicknamed the “Pepsi” bezel by collectors. In fact, the GMT-Master gave rise to a whole new segment of the market that we just call “GMT watches” these days.
Envy-inducing from the get-go
It didn’t take a long time for the Rolex GMT to become a common sight on a Pan Am plane, as they were issued to the pilot, first officer, and navigator. But a story that has become legend amongst enthusiasts is that of the Albino GMT 6542. The set-up goes that Pan Am executives were getting tired of their flight crews getting shiny new watches, and would end up taking some for themselves. Pan Am founder Juan Trippe was not a fan of this idea, and to pacify his ground-based employees, ordered a small batch of white-dialled 6542s. Less than a handful of these have ever surfaced, and of the ones that have, there is still great dispute over whether the dials and story are a fabrication that vintage dealers have come up with to create highly desirable pieces. It would certainly not be the first time that has happened, but it’s the mistyque that makes these pieces as interesting as they are.
We can’t talk about the history of the GMT-Master without a special mention of Honor Blackman. The actress was famous in her native England for starring as Dr Kathy Gale in the spy television series The Avengers, and found wider success when cast opposite Sean Connery as James Bond in 1964’s Goldfinger. Playing henchwoman Pussy Galore, her portrayal of the character included the 6542 on her wrist, which would later become the nickname for that particular reference. While she was portrayed as a judo expert and pilot – the original girlboss, if you will – Bond films have thankfully gotten better at naming their female leads.
Screen legend Marlon Brando also famously wore his GMT-Master 1675 sans bezel as the mad Colonel Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war epic Apocalypse Now. The watch was auctioned in 2019, hammering at a price just below US$2 million, before going under the hammer once again in 2023 at Christie’s, this time taking over US$5.3 million.
The GMT-Master continued to be popular in the mainstream through subsequent iterations, which also included the military community alongside. Most notably, General Chuck Yeager, the American test pilot who was first to break the sound barrier in 1947 piloting the experimental Bell X-1. Yeager was a long-time Rolex ambassador who had worked with the brand since the 1950s, and despite not wearing a GMT during the record-breaking flight (that watch has only been identified as some sort of Rolex Oyster), he’s best-known for sporting the GMT-Master II ref. 16710.
Evolution, rather than revolution
And speaking of these GMT-Master variants, it’s worth revisiting the important references that have existed since the model’s 1954 inception. While there have been numerous references in both steel and precious metals over the years, the generations of the GMT-Master can largely be separated into three categories, based on their bezel materials. The first is the Bakelite bezels of the original 6542, followed by the aluminium-bezelled era lasting from the late 1950s/early ’60s until the mid-2000s, and finally the Cerachrom bezels that we still see today beginning in 2007.
As we’ve covered the ref. 6542 quite extensively, let’s get right into its successor, the ref. 1675. It is one of Rolex’s longest-running models, starting production in 1959 and lasting until 1980. The most noticeable change was in the case design, which grew to 40mm from the original’s 38mm, as well as the addition of pointed crown guards that would change into rounded ones in the mid-1960s.
There were solid gold variants (initially without crown guards), and two-tone versions, with both black and gold/brown bezel inserts available. These would give rise to the “Root Beer” nickname that still sticks around today. Tech-wise, the 1675 started with the Officially Certified Chronometer-dialled variants that contained the 1535, and would only be produced for about a year. From that point onwards, Rolex used the calibre 1565 until the mid-’60s, before transitioning to the high-beat (and eventually hackable) 1575.
Given its lengthy production run under the same reference, the 1675 is ripe with a variety of dials, with gilt ones eventually giving way to matte examples, and the expected melange of open chapter rings, underlines, double Swiss, long Es, et cetera. While this is an in-depth article about the GMT-Master, to go over all the minute differences between the five different dial types used in steel 1675s would take up a few too many paragraphs.
The end of the 1675 reference in 1980 brought about the beefed-up 16750 (and ref. 16758 in gold). Though its eight-year production span was dwarfed by its predecessor, it was an important reference as it introduced the Rolex 3075 movement. This meant you’d get a quick-set date for the very first time, as well as a proper, 4Hz beat rate, all sealed in with an increased water resistance of 100 metres.
This is where it gets confusing. If you thought that the specs of the ref. 16750 sound a lot like a GMT-Master II, you’d be right, except it still used a non-jumping hour hand. That would be rectified two years later after its introduction, with the 1982 debut of the ref. 16760, which was indeed the first GMT-Master II, as well as the first black and red bezel for a Rolex GMT. The new 3085 calibre, though thicker, allowed for the quick setting of the hour hand without hacking the movement, in the model that is often referred to as the “Fad Lady” or the “Sophia Loren”.
But the confusing part is that the GMT-Master 16750 and GMT-Master II 16760 were produced concurrently until 1988. Muddying the waters even further, after their discontinuing, Rolex introduced another GMT-Master I and II duo with the references 16700 (last GMT-Master I, calibre 3175) and 16710 (second-gen GMT-Master II, calibre 3185). The former was billed as a more cost-effective alternative to the latter, and Rolex clearly saw no issues with this approach, with the 16700 continuing production all the way until 1999.
After nearly two decades, the production of reference 16710 would come to a close, paving the way for the Rolex GMT-Master II that we know today. Though the case diameter stayed at 40mm, its features bloated considerably for a beefier look, but the biggest difference was the introduction of the Cerachrom bezel insert instead of the long-standing aluminium. The first step was the introduction of the 50th anniversary reference 116710LN, a solid gold, green-dialled model with a black ceramic bezel in 2005, followed up by the first steel model in 2007 – the reference 116710LN.
Other than the numerous material and dial variants that would not have necessitated a reference change in the 1980s, the last big development for the Rolex GMT was the introduction of a bi-colour ceramic bezel with the 2013 Batman. As impressive of a feat this was – producing a single piece of ceramic in two colours is supremely difficult – rumours have circulated ever since that the Batman was a happy accident, and that Rolex could not get the iconic Pepsi colour scheme quite right. The white gold Pepsi that came out the very next year silenced many of those critics.
Notable models
Aside from the aforementioned Pan Am Albino 6542 which, if real, would be the absolute grail of Rolex GMT collecting, I wanted to outline a few personal favourite references. We start with another model with a dubious history, and that’s the Blueberry. Allegedly created in the 1970s and in limited numbers for the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern armed forces (some including UAE eagle insignia and Arabic date wheels), the main point of contention is, of course, the blue bezel. Naturally, Rolex never offered to comment on their veracity, but what’s known is that there were almost certainly never offered to the general public, meaning that the blue bezels must have been fitted by Rolex and issued to the military, or potentially offered to special clients during servicing. Whether or not you believe in their originality or not, you’ll be paying a pretty penny for a “genuine” Blueberry.
How about a model that is not contentious at all, but is still relatively rare and with desirable features but without sacrificing many of the modern creature comforts you’ve become used to? The ref. 16750 is the one to look for, and the one I’d probably buy considering it’s not as outrageously priced as pretty much any of the others I listed here, generally floating in the low-five-digit dollar range.
Truth be told, these five-digit references are kind of the sweet spot for GMT-Master collecting, especially if you’re after something vintage. Apart from the transitional 16750, my heart is set on the original Root Beer – the reference 1675/3. These days, I find myself pretty much existing in different shades of brown linen, so the warm tones of the Root Beer would just match perfectly, especially seeing as it’s also not among the priciest GMT-Master variants out there, either.
And if I had to pick at least one modern GMT-Master II, it would likely be a toss-up between the recent monochromatic model (or Bruce Wayne, as I’ve heard it referred to as) or the Pepsi in white gold. The former is decidedly inobtrusive as few modern Rolexes can be, and I much prefer the subtle distinction in the bezel colours when compared to the likes of the Batman or Pepsi, and ideally on the Oyster bracelet.
Having said that, if you’re going with the iconic colourway, may as well step it up a notch and go all-out in white gold. Again, it’s subtle enough considering it’s on an Oyster bracelet, and the blue dial softens the lustre of the colourful bezel just enough. Personal preferences aside, there’s a good reason why the Rolex GMT-Master has barely changed design-wise throughout its 70-year existence. The incremental technological updates throughout the years did make it better (perhaps with the exception of the Sprite – sorry not sorry), but the iconic design was here from the very beginning.