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 perfect 1:1 UK replica 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 top Swiss fake 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 high quality replica Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m watches. 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 AAA 2024 copy watches 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 fake watches for men recovered from his crash with a Rimac Concept One… For Sand Job, Hammond opted for yet another Rolex, which appears to be vintage cheap replica Rolex Explorer II watches with a white dial. It is most likely a reference 16570, as seen above. Produced for 22 years (1989 – 2011), this dual time best super clone watches 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.
