ROLEX’S 2023 DAYTONA LEMANS WAS JUST DISCONTINUED

Is The Crown offering limited editions without calling them "Limited Editions?"

I once spent three days hanging around the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance with Rolex ambassador and nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen as he judged the most stunning and valuable cars in the world. However, it was while sucking fumes on a rickety scaffolding at the top of Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew watching vintage Mini Coopers toddle into that crazy descending right hander that I asked Kristensen what he thought of Paul Newman as a racer. Kristensen’s answer cut through the whine of those Austin straight-fours with typical Danish diplomacy: “Newman could drive, but he was not a career racer.”

Perhaps no better summary of Newman’s racing legacy is needed. Newman was 54 when he placed second overall at the 1979 edition of Le Mans, and he was 70 when he won his class at 1995’s Rolex 24 at Daytona. Impressive for an aging actor, but to Kristensen’s point, entirely lackluster when compared to the records of professional drivers.

And still, the world swoons over photographs of Newman looking thoughtfully down the track as he dons his team’s tracksuit, his signature oversized Carrera Aviators, and, of course, that Rolex Daytona his wife gave him that hammered for $17.8 million in 2017.

That auction set the record for the most expensive watch ever sold up to that date, and forever more, that weird quasi-Art Deco dial will be known as a “Newman dial.” Good luck getting one south of six-figures.

As of 2023, however, one didn’t have to turn to vintage to enjoy a Newman dial. To mark the 100th edition of LeMans, Rolex—a company which prides itself on never looking backward, on only making incremental improvements to long-running references, and on heralding that slow and steady evolution—issued a retro-styled Newman-esque Cosmograph. The six-digit reference 126529LN shocked the watch world. Rolex interpreting a vintage model was unheard of. And yet there it was: a reverse panda dial, those funky art-deco numerals and square-tipped indices on the subdials, and Paul Newman all over the marketing materials. Jaws hit the ground.

The Reference 126529LN did not feature the name “Daytona” on the dial, and Rolex called this new Newman-esque watch “The LeMans.” Here’s why: Rolex didn’t form its relationship with Daytona until 1964, and in 1963 Rolex advertised its racing chronograph saying, “It’s called The LeMans.”

True to the Newman Daytonas of yesteryear, the 126529LN was also very difficult to get. Production numbers are unknown, but as with almost all Rolex sport models today, examples of the $51,400 white gold 126529LN were allocated through authorized dealers to priority clients.

Discontinued After Just One Year

Just this week at Watches & Wonders in Geneva, Rolex announced that it had discontinued 126529L LeMans. That watch just went from impossible to find to impossibly expensive when these eventually show up at auction.

Other than happening so quickly, this cancellation of the LeMans isn’t an anomaly. Other hard-to-get models like the GMT Master II Pepsi and the left-handed GMT II Sprite are rumored to be discontinued, and the coveted Rainbow Daytona is no longer in production. And generally speaking, it’s hard to get any Rolex Professional model. The unavailability of new Rolex watches lines up with well-known luxury branding strategies that set limits on product access so that a brand can maintain the fine sheen of exclusivity while also driving prices to a premium. To be fair, Rolex are rather well priced for what they are—but that’s assuming you can get one at retail. On the secondary market, an in-demand Rolex can fetch many percentage points over retail.

Because Rolex is now running an international Certified Pre-Owned program, I might muse that Rolex benefits financially by driving up demand, price and buzz for rare models like the 2023 LeMans. Creating buzz around recent rarities like this seems to legitimize the notion of spending well over retail for recent models at Rolex retail outlets.

But I’m not always in a cynical mood, and there are other ways to read this discontinuation of the Daytona LeMans.

Firstly, limiting access to certain watches in not an entirely new practice for Rolex, and it’s not at all uncommon among just about every other brand who offers limited editions ad nauseum. Rolex doesn’t offer limited editions—or maybe the better way to put this is that Rolex doesn’t call its limited editions “Limited Editions.” So, perhaps Rolex is doing things in its own confidently unconventional way, which is not unappealing to me. Consider that the entire corporation operates under the umbrella of a massive not-for-profit, and you are just catching a glimpse of how different Rolex is from pretty much every other major watch company in the world. I love that about Rolex.

Secondly, I have found it odd to feel so negatively about Rolex’s exclusivity when, in fact, Rolex is no different from, say, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet and Lange & Sohne—all of which I admire in an uncomplicated way. But I—and more than a few of my comrades in horology—do feel bad about Rolex’s exclusivity in particular. Why is that?

I think the reason that we watch enthusiasts can hold Rolex to a different standard than we hold these other storied Swiss brands is that for close to a century Rolex was an accessible brand—perhaps not in price, but anyone could walk into a shop and buy a Rollie if they had the cash. That’s just not how Rolex rolls these days. Maybe it’s just going to take a few more years for us to adjust to the new Rolex which operates boutiques full of watches “For Exhibition Only” and which offers up watches like the Daytona LeMans on a limited basis for 12 months and then slams the door shut, even on its most high-profile clients. Given enough time, I’m sure that even we nostalgic types will forgive the Crown for continuing to be so awesome.

Written By Allen Farmelo