Feature: Rolex’s GMT-Master Was Actually Its Second Pilot’s Watch

In the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, Frank Abagnale Junior, a young conman played by Leonardo DiCaprio, disguises himself as a Pan Am pilot to escape the attention of FBI agent Carl Hanratty who is searching for him at Miami International Airport.

Had Abagnale Junior not hidden himself among a bevy of glamorous cabin crew as he made his way through the airport Hanratty might have spotted the imposter by what he had—or rather didn't have—on his wrist.

Because whatever watch Abagnale Junior is wearing–and we never get a full-on wrist close up during this scene–it certainly isn’t a Rolex GMT-Master, the distinctive and now iconic watch provided to Pan Am pilots during that era.

Now one of Rolex’s most identifiable models, the GMT-Master owes its very existence to the golden age of jet travel and what was then the world’s most prestigious international airline.

An early GMT-Master Reference 6542 - note the absence of a crown guard. Image: Bonhams

Unlike most pilot’s watches,¬ it wasn’t made for wearing in an aerial skirmish with MIG 29s or Messerschmitts. This was a watch designed specifically for passenger jet plane pilots, hence its smaller size and a dial design that looks nothing like a flieger, Breitling Navitimer, Hanhart or any other conventional pilot’s watch.

Pan Am’s Request

In 1953, America’s leading carrier Pan Am asked Rolex to provide its pilots with a watch that could show two time zones simultaneously. With their constant travelling, it would be a useful tool for them as they would no longer need to keep adjusting their watches.

Rolex had already reached the highest point in the world that year on the famous Everest expedition; here was a chance for it to rule the skies by being Pan Am’s official timekeeper.

At the time, Rolex co-founder Hans Wilsdorf was still at the helm, with the savvy Rene Paul Jeanneret employed as the brand’s public relations director. As a marketing double-act, they were dynamite—a bit like having two Jean-Claude Bivers at your disposal.

Jeanneret is credited as being the man who believed Rolex sports watches should always function as proper tool watches and he was aware of the promotional potential in creating a watch for Pan Am pilots. Wilsdorf, equally enthusiastic, was on a visit to the Ritz in Paris when the request from Pan Am reached him, and so he sent a few preliminary sketches to Rolex’s Geneva headquarters.

Thus in 1953 a group of employees from Rolex and Pan Am began work on a new model, based loosely on an existing one that had already proven its mettle in the skies—the now discontinued Turn-O-Graph.

Thunderbirds Are Go!

The Turn-O-Graph was the first serially produced Rolex with a rotating bezel and had already been tried and tested by the pilots of the US Air Force’s acrobatic flying squadron. Named the Thunderbirds, these elite pilots had used the Turn-O-Graph to aide their navigational calculations.

A GMT-Master Reference 1675 from the 1970s in yellow gold. Image: Bonhams

But to give two simultaneous time zones the new watch needed a different, all-new movement. Rolex therefore created Reference 1036, a calibre with a second hour hand that ran half as fast and to an additional 24-hour time scale on the bezel. The 24-hour hand circled the dial once a day instead of twice, its tip pointing to the corresponding hour.

The first models, bearing the Reference 6542, were released in 1955, with the black dial version given to pilots and the white dial version to ground personnel.

This was followed by the celebrated Reference 1675, introduced in 1959, which bulked up the case by 2mm and introduced a crown guard.

Manufactured continuously for the next 20 years, there’s still plenty of 1675s knocking around today on the pre-owned and vintage watch market. But it goes without saying that they don’t come cheap.

GMT Variations

The GMT line has never been out of production since 1955 and it has been constantly improved upon over the decades, with early plastic bezel inserts being replaced by aluminium ones and those in turn being replaced with Rolex’s own scratch-proof version of ceramic–Cerachrom.

Movements too have been constantly upgraded, including a quick-set date function (on the second-generation GMT-Master II) and a feature that meant the GMT hand could be adjusted backwards or forwards in full hour increments, independent of the regular hour hand.

One of the most recent GMT Master II models with blue and black bezel

Furthermore the classic red and blue ‘Pepsi’ bezel has been joined over the years by versions in gold and brown (the ‘root beer’), red and black (the ‘Coke’) and more recently, black and blue (the ‘Batman’). Steel-and-gold and all-steel versions with all-black bezels were released in 2006 and 2007, respectively.

Both the GMT-Master and its successor, the GMT-Master II, were made simultaneously for a short while until the former was finally taken out of production in 1999.

Its current line-up includes the Reference 126710BLORO with the classic red and blue bezel, the 116710BLNR with blue and black bezel, and the two-tone Reference 126711CHNR, which also comes in Rolex’s Everose gold.

Most Copied Bezel Ever?

In choosing blue and red, possibly in tribute to the US flag, Rolex began a bezel colour combination that has been copied a thousand times over by everyone from Seiko to Squale, Tudor to TAG Heuer.

But regardless of the brand, it’s hard to look at any watch sporting that striking bezel without your mind wandering to Rolex’s GMT-Master, a real stalwart of the Rolex line-up and boasting a loyal fanbase among the crown’s cognoscenti.

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