In the early 1950s, as international commercial jet airline travel was just taking off, Pan American Airways—then at the forefront of this mode of travel—needed a way for its pilots and air crews to track both local as well as Greenwich Mean Time. Rolex developed and offered the perfect solution, which it subsequently commercialized to great success: The GMT-Master reference 6542 was equipped with an automatic movement featuring a fourth hand that was “slaved" to the local hour hand when read against an offset from the bidirectional bezel with 24-hour markings, it could easily track a second time zone. Though this reference featured no crown guards, it was the next iteration, the reference 1675 with crown guards, that has come to define its longstanding look. (The updated GMT-Master II, launched in 1983, was even more useful than these initial iterations, offering an independently adjustable local hour hand and, thus, for the first time, the ability to track three zones.) The watch’s bi-color bezel—most famous in its blue and red “Pepsi" iteration—is now recognizable by even horological novices.
Like the Submariner and the Cosmograph Daytona, what began as a tool watch has now become a luxury item, with two-tone as well as solid-gold versions joining the standard stainless-steel variants. However, also like those other famed Rolex models, a GMT-Master II is still recognizable no matter how fancy its livery: Each one features a dial with four hands, one of which—the GMT hand—is in a contrasting color with an arrow-shaped tip. The bidirectional bezel with a 24-hour scale is usually in two colors: One for daytime hours and the other for nighttime hours for quick identification. An automatic, COSC-certified Rolex movement powers each, and each is offered on a Rolex bracelet—either a three-link Oyster or the elegant, five-link Jubilee, depending on the reference. For frequent travelers, there’s simply no more intuitive, elegant solution than the Rolex GMT-Master.
From the article by Allen Farmelo, Paige Reddinger, Victoria Gomelsky, Oren Hartov, Blake Buettner
