Before giving its name to one of the most symbolic Rolex models, the city of Daytona Beach, in Florida, started building its legend in 1903, as it became the par excellence track for automotive speed records, as its straight beach has a concrete-hard kind of sand. Therefore, Daytona, as a name, attests the historic link between the Rolex company and motor sport competitions, be they focused on endurance or speed.
The Rolex Daytona series (several models belonging to this series are available on the Watchclub.com website) is, according to the Rolex company, the ultimate chronograph. These automatic watches feature a high performance level are accurate, easily readable, sturdy, reliable, fully water-resistant and are also easily wearable, remaining elegant and timeless. As the Daytona model arose from a matchless, perfect alchemy between form and function, it is an absolute benchmark in the field, judging from its significant worldwide success.
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Nowadays, after more than fifty years since the first model was made available on the market in 1963, it may very well be stated that the perfection of this series is due to a long process of evolution. Every caption appearing on the quadrant of a Rolex watch guarantee its performance and they have been added one by one as time went by: initially sporting just “Cosmograph”, they now feature captions such as “Oyster”, “perpetual”, “Cosmograph” or “Daytona”, besides being considered officially certified superlative chronometers nowadays. This is the veritable chronicle of a myth in watchmaking.
The new Cosmograph Daytona steel model adopted a new aesthetic outlook, replacing the engraved metal bezel with a single-piece Cerachrom high-technology black ceramic bezel, featuring extraordinarily sculpted, smooth and polished figures. Such an aesthetical and technical evolution is also a nod to the first 1965 historic model, featuring a black bezel and a Plexiglas disc.
The Cerachrom bezel, an innovative component patented by the Rolex company, features several advantages. The toughness of this bezel makes it virtually unscratchable, its colour remains unaltered even after having been under ultraviolet rays and it is corrosion-resistant as well. Besides such an extreme durability, the numbers making up the tachymetric scale are extraordinarily readable, thanks to a procedure developed and patented by the Rolex company. The tachymeter scale is engraved into the ceramic piece before sintering it at the temperature of 1.500 °C; afterwards, the scale is covered with an extra-thin platinum layer through a procedure involving PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition). Thanks to the clarity achieved by means of this procedure and to the contrast between the platinum and the black ceramic, the bezel featured within the Rolex Daytona 2016 achieves an unparalleled degree of readability. The design of the tachymetric scale has been revamped as well, as its numbers now follow the circumference of the bezel and feature triangular markers. Built as a single piece, the Cerachrom bezel holds the watch glass on its own, warranting its water resistance on the carrure. This exclusive component first appeared on a 18-karat Everose gold Daytona model; afterwards, it was implemented for the 950 platinum version of this watch model, made available in 2013 as it celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Cosmograph Daytona series.
