Owner’s Review: One Year Later with the Rolex Daytona 126500

The Rolex Daytona is a tricky watch to discuss these days. It’s difficult to separate the watch itself from its status as a barometer to the health of the entire second-hand market — a position that the watch itself surely never asked to be put into. Everyone has an opinion on the Daytona, and these days, those opinions seem to lean more negative due mostly to what it has come to represent. As such, it rarely gets a fair crack at an honest judgment. In fact, it’s a watch I generally shy away from discussing publicly. But I’ve always liked the Daytona, and I take pleasure in wearing mine in non-watch-enthusiast environments. That’s because, behind all the speculation and hype culture, there’s a genuinely good sports watch that’s almost never seen as such. After a year of owning the reference 126500 Daytona introduced in 2023, and amidst a cooling second-hand market, I think it’s time to change that. 

Let’s start off by confronting the reality of this watch. The MSRP of the steel Daytona Reference 126500 in either black or white dial (dark or light, in Rolex parlance) is $15,100. The same watches trade for between $27,000 and $32,000 in the open market. This is a serious discrepancy, but it does seem to have stabilized from a high point in 2021. In fact, it seems to be slowly coming down, but not nearly to a price that the watch merits, if you ask me. At its MSRP, the Daytona is a legitimately great watch, but only just. At ~$30,000, this is a very different proposition, and one I’d caution interested parties to wait on. With that acknowledgement, let’s tackle what this watch is like in day-to-day life. 

The Daytona Reference 116500 was hugely popular for bringing a black Cerachrom bezel into the mix, recalling four-digit references that once offered steel and black acrylic bezels side by side. That said, under the hood things were largely the same as the Reference 116520 that first introduced the Caliber 4130 back in 2000. As popular as the move to a ceramic bezel was, there were still a few issues I had with the reference that the new 126500 generation managed to fix. Unfortunately, the new generation lost some important charm in the process. Alas, it would seem there is no such thing as a perfect modern Daytona (with the possible exception of the “Le Mans” Ref. 126529LN). 

So what does the new 126500 fix from the prior generation? Well, this is a clearly subjective area, but one of my biggest gripes with the 116500 was the shape of the hour markers. Every prior reference of the Daytona used elegant, slim bar markers which never interfered with the other elements throughout the dial. With the 116500, Rolex decided to use wider, board-shaped markers with a pointed tip, containing a rectangular application of lume, creating more tension than necessary in the process. You could make the argument that these hour markers were sized in proportion to the rings defining the subdials, and the thickness of the bezel piece, which the new reference put into stark contrast. 

The 126500 moved back to thinner hour markers, similar to what we had with the 16520 throughout the ‘90s. Additionally, those outlines defining the subdials, and even the bezel itself, got proportionally thinner. It’s not a big difference, but all of these elements together add up to an appreciable difference. I’d also add that the 126500 is less photogenic than the 116500 for precisely this reason (but only slightly). In practice and on the wrist, the dial, bezel, and hour markers feel much more cohesive, and less aggressive than the prior reference. It’s still not terribly legible, but it’s more legible, in my experience, than it has been in a very long time. Using black indexes and hands would go a long way here, à la the white-dialed Omega Speedmaster released earlier this year. 

Elsewhere on the dial, there are still a few details that I wouldn’t mind seeing changed, but altogether aren’t deal breakers. The first is the stack of text at the top of the dial, which eats up most of the negative space. The second is the center line of the totalizer hands falling just above the center line of the dial, so these hands sit just a nudge above the central handstack, as well as the 3 and 9 o’clock hour markers. This has been the case since Rolex moved to its first in-house movement back in 2000, and it remains the case here with the latest, Caliber 4230. These are minor annoyances, though, and I’d still call this a very handsome dial overall. 

The thinner bezel, which is now lined with the same metal as the case and bracelet, really works well at a glance, and brings a hint of that old-school vibe back to the watch. However, this is far from a throwback by any stretch. While the dial and bezel got some welcome refinements, it’s a slightly different story with the case itself. One of my favorite details of the Daytona is how it wears. It’s a perfectly sized and shaped watch to make for easy daily use. It’s like a perfectly worn-in pair of jeans in that regard. The 116500 had a perfectly sized case, at just under 40mm that tapered at the lug to nestle neatly into the wrist. It was also slightly asymmetrical to counter the visual weight of the crown and pushers. This case shape was only found on the steel references of the prior generation, as the precious metal cases had a wider foot to the lug and a symmetrical case that measured slightly larger. 

The 126500 brought a uniform case design to the Daytona collection across precious metal and steel cases, and unfortunately, they are all the slightly larger, symmetrical case with a flat spot at the lug termination. As a result, this reference wears ever-so-slightly larger than the previous steel references, and has lost a touch of grace in appearance when viewed from the side. This will only really be noticeable if you’ve spent time wearing each generation, and I’d still call the 126500 a very comfortable watch; I just wish it would have retained the same asymmetrical case as the 116500. 

In an ideal world, the steel Daytona would keep a sub-40mm case, use uniformly filled- in subdials, and lose some of the polish on the dial furniture to make for a more legible experience. I wouldn’t mind seeing a fully brushed case, either. Maybe even one made of titanium, now that Rolex seems to be in that game. I’d settle for any one of these, but it feels like a game of two steps forward, one step backward when it comes to the modern Daytona. The 126500 is an imperfect watch, yet it still has a captivating power that rises above the sum of its parts. Viewed through a microscope, it’s easy to fixate on those imperfections, but in day-to-day use, viewed at a glance, and appreciated as a companion, it becomes something much more satisfying. 

Ultimately, this is still a tool watch, and I wish Rolex would treat it like one. I also wish the market would view it as one. There’s no magic to this watch that is worth double the asking price, and if it weren’t for a perfect mix of auction results and hype culture, I think it would be a far more reasonable proposition in the secondary market. I hope to see that cycle pass, and for the Daytona to once again feel comfortable in its own shoes, viewed and appreciated for what it is. If you can get past all the hullabaloo, there’s a great, practical watch here that should not be relegated to sitting in a safe for the next bull run in the watch market.