The snowflake design, in addition to forming a highly legible set of dive watch hands, quickly and easily distinguishes a Tudor watch from any other brand’s wares—including those from Rolex. Personally, it took me some years to come around to snowflake hands. (I initially preferred the “lollipop” hands of certain vintage Subs to the snowflake, and fellow nerds thought I was crazy. They may have been right.) These days, I quite like them, and they do indeed differentiate something like the BB 58 GMT from a Rolex GMT-Master II—which otherwise look very similar. My one issue is that, on this initially BB 58 GMT colorway, the seconds hand is the same color and shape of the hour hand. I’d personally much prefer this hand to be a different color, like on the steel versions of the Black Bay GMT. Maybe in a future “Pepsi” version the brand will leave off the gilt coloring, and change the seconds hand to red?
Wish List
For me—and for many folks, seemingly—the Black Bay GMT looked perfect, but was just a touch too wide, and too tall. The Black Bay Pro similarly looked like a million bucks, but at 14.6 mm was way too tall. The BB 58 GMT, on the other hand? Goldilocks watch, no question. It’s just right at 39 mm by 12.8 mm, and the rivet bracelet is perfectly comfortable. (I tried the watch on its rubber strap in Geneva, though I didn’t wear it for a week at home for review. It, too, was highly comfortable.) My one wish is that Tudor would make a 20-mm five-link bracelet—similar to the Rolex Jubilee bracelet—to fit this model. One of the joys of the Rolex GMT-Master II in steel is enjoying that brand’s Jubilee bracelet, which is highly elegant and comfortable. I’m hoping a future BB 58 GMT will have this as an option.
My other big wish regarding the BB 58 GMT is for a 24-hour track on the dial itself—ideally, on a rehaut, or inner flange beyond the minute track so that it wouldn’t interfere with the dial design. Why an inner 24-hour track? Because though this watch, with its independently adjustable local hour hand, can technically track three time zones, in practice this is difficult: When you move the 24-hour bezel to track your third zone, you no longer have a fixed 24-hour scale visible against the dial’s hands, which makes reading your second time zone tough unless you’ve memorized the positioning of the 24-hour indications. Certain timepieces, such as the Monta Skyquest, fix this by placing a 24-hour track on the dial itself. I’d love to see this in a future Tudor GMT watch.
The Bottom Line
I’ve been waiting for this watch for six years, and I have to say: I love the heck out of it. Is the black-and-red “Coke” bezel with gilt accents and printing my ideal colorway? It’s not—in fact, I’d prefer a “Pepsi” color, which jives a bit better with my wardrobe and looks a bit “happier,” to my mind—but I still found myself glancing down at it all week, appreciating its subtleties and quirks. Its sizing is ideal for me, and the bracelet is highly comfortable. I have no doubt whatsoever that this “Coke” version is merely the first of many colorways to come, and that next year’s Watches & Wonders will yield yet another compelling iteration.
For constant travelers like myself, the BB 58 GMT is the ideal everyday watch. Because it’s built like a tank and boasts 200 meters of water resistance, I never had to worry about it when on wrist, and I’d be perfectly comfortable swimming and even diving with it. (Though technically not a dive watch, you can use its bi-directional bezel as a dive timer in a pinch.) It also looks great with outfits both casual and even a bit more formal—though it’s perhaps a bit too colorful and chunky for, say, black tie. At slightly less than $5K and with a COSC- and METAS-certified movement and “flyer” GMT functionality, it’s by no means inexpensive, but certainly a lot of watch for the money…
Probably more than you’ll ever need, in fact.
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