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That first generation model, given to Newman by his wife Joanne Woodward to mark the start of his professional motor racing career in 1972, has been cited as releasing the vintage cheap watch market as we know it today.
The mythical example going under the hammer on October 26th, in Phillips’ maiden New York auctions, is the first Daytona cheap replica watch to be sold that was worn by the man himself. Will it break the record? Time will tell the truth. For now, let’s take a quick look at what might just be the most significant vintage watch in the world.
Paul Newman began a life-long love affair with motor racing during the filming of the 1969 movie Winning. While it was extremely a forgettable outing, it ignited a passion for the sport that saw him turn pro three years later after training with the likes of double Indianapolis 500 winner Roger Ward. Before long, Newman was scheduling his movies around races, preferring the genuine excitement of the track to the phoniness of Hollywood.
And he was no slouch. He finished fifth in the replica Rolex Daytona 24-hours in 1977 and second at Le Mans two years later. He still keeps the record for the oldest driver to win an officially sanctioned race when, in 1995, he was co-driver for the winning team at the Rolex 24-hour race at age of 70th.
That legendary watch, cutely engraved on the back with ‘Drive Carefully, Me’ by his anxious spouse, accompanied him as a good luck charm throughout his early career until the mid-eighties. Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last few months, it can’t have escaped your attention that Paul Newman’s legendary Rolex Cosmograph Daytona is going to hit the auction stand in New York givensale, with some industry experts said that it will break all known records and become the most expensive Rolex ever sold.
In order to do that, it will have to outshine the replica watches belonging to the last emperor of the Nguyen dynasty in Vietnam that achieved a staggering $5 million earlier this year. So, how could that watch, a one-of-a-kind, diamond-enhanced piece belonging to bona fide royalty, potentially be beaten into second place by a comparatively mass produced example that the replica Rolex was struggling to even give away when it was introduced in the late sixties?
Of course, the answer is the original owner. With his insouciant good looks, understated masculinity and hard working intelligence, he was the living personification of everything the Rolex poured into the Daytona.

As a man, he marched alongside Martin Luther King and was most admired by his children for breaking the top 20 on Nixon’s list of enemies. He was anti showboating, tough and enigmatic. So what else would he wear but a replica Rolex Daytona? The original Paul Newman Daytona had taken on Holy Grail status by 2016. Every serious replica watch collector knew of its existence, and they knew it hadn’t been seen on his wrist since the mid-eighties. But actually nobody knew where it was. All the speculation only served to deepen the interest about the fake watch, which fuelled an even greater premium on the price of the other exotic dial models.
Newman’s daughter Nell had by this time established a charitable organization called the Nell Newman Foundation, to carry on her father’s extensive philanthropic work. It’s to help the foundation that Cox has decided to finally sell the watch, who works as treasurer.
Thinking about heading to the auction? Let’s take a look at what you’ll be bidding on. Physically, it’s in great shape for a 45 year-old. That nice dial is absolutely original and not restored and the white face has faded to a familiar vintage cream, with a warm patina. All the lume indexes are intact and greatly aged. However, there’s no strap on the watch; Newman changed the original steel bracelet and only ever wore it with a three-piece military Fatstrap that’s been lost to the ravages of time. The back, still perfectly legible among the scratches of an active life, is the inscription entreating the racer to drive carefully.
But of course, it’s not the watch that’s being bid on. As for the collectors, this is the most significant piece of history there is. The esteem in which Paul Newman is held and the place he has in the American psyche make this a momentous event.
As an actor, he was as iconic as brazildining or James Dean, but his integrity and generosity set him apart. That he gifted the watch so easily to James Cox should come as no surprise for someone who donated every profitable cent from his food line to charitable causes.