Rolex, Omega, G-Shock… The Watches of “Sand Job”, the Penultimate Episode of The Grand Tour

It’s been a while since we last saw Clarkson, Hammond and May, whether on screen or here, at MONOCHROME. A few days ago, Amazon Studios unveiled the second to last episode of the three middle-aged men’s car show, The Grand Tour. Combining this and the fact that Top Gear has been taken off air by BBC (following Freddie Flintoff’s crash) makes me and most of the MONO team rather sad – we’re watch and car nerds, after all. But let’s not get bogged down, as Clarkson would say in Sand Job, the latest episode of The Grand Tour, which also had some watches – classic or new – to reveal. 

As the Amazon Studio press release states: “Jeremy, James and Richard head to Africa for their penultimate adventure, and given they are entering the end game, they make sure this outing is a spectacular one.” Sounds both promising and sad at the same time, opening the door to a couple of hours of great fun and also announcing the end of what has been a great show for all car lovers and petrolheads. The reality is that later this year, The Grand Tour will end with a trip to Zimbabwe. My hopes for an epic show are high. It has to be! But the reality is that car enthusiasts are experiencing hard times. BBC’s Top Gear and Amazon’s The Grand Tour, two shows once hosted by Clarkson, Hammond and May, won’t make it to 2025.

In Sand Job, the three guys headed to the remote African country of Mauritania, following in the footsteps of the legendary Paris-Dakar rally. But instead of classic Dakar racers, Clarkson, Hammond and May have decided to complete their journey in used and abused modified sports cars – a Jaguar F Type V6 for Jeremy, an Aston Martin DB9 Volante for Richard and a Maserati GranCabrio for James – in typical guise for the trio. As you would expect, things didn’t go as expected with these sports cars… For the interest of the show, of course. Crossing the Senegal River while heading to Dakar without access to a bridge was slightly perilous in these non-bespoke machines.

But more than the show itself – which I’ll let you discover on your own – it’s the watches worn during the adventure that have tickled our interest. One is a classic seen on multiple occasions; one seems to be an unprecedented sight; and the last, even though far from collectable, was probably the most appropriate choice for the adventure.

Jeremy Clarkson, as was often the case during Top Gear and The Grand Tour, was wearing his trustworthy Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m. This black dial version of the brand’s oversized dive watch is still worn on the same black rubber strap, and seeing it again after so many of these rough adventures reinforces the idea that this watch is almost indestructible. The watch in question is an early example of the Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m, with a 45.5mm steel case, a black dial and bezel and a co-axial calibre 2500 inside (a modified version of the ETA 2892-A2).

Next in line in The Grand Tour is Richard Hammond, known to be quite a watch collector – remember his burnt Rolex Sea-Dweller recovered from his crash with a Rimac Concept One… For Sand Job, Hammond opted for yet another Rolex, which appears to be a vintage Explorer II with a white dial. It is most likely a reference 16570, as seen above. Produced for 22 years (1989 – 2011), this dual time watch featured a 40mm case and black-outlined markers and hands. And while it wasn’t a watch developed for desert exploration, this Rolex Explorer II looked purposeful during this Sahara trip.

Last, we have yet another known watch enthusiast, James May – we’ve seen him with several Rolex, IWC, Rado, Omega or Casio watches… And James chose to go with Casio once again, with what appears to be the most appropriate option for a road trip in the desert, a G-Shock (right, not typically what you’d expect us to cover on MONOCHROME, but nevertheless a great outdoor watch). It’s hard to spot which exact reference May is wearing, but some sources have spotted him in recent videos wearing a teal-green, semi-transparent Casio G-Shock DW-5600SB-3 – which could well be what we’re looking at in this episode of The Grand Tour. And at $110, it’s by far the most accessible of all three watches seen here.