Rolex

The watch is characterized by a large 39mm case with a brushed finish metal tachymeter bezel.

The winding crown and pushers are identical to the Rolex Cosmograph of the same era (ref. 6263/6265), but the watch is larger and thicker. The chronograph pushers are the famous mk1 pushers that you only find on the very early Rolex/Tudor chronographs. The watch is water proof to 5 bars / 50 meters, the pushers may not be operated under water

The thick crown guards add to the character and bulkiness of the case, which has thick massive lugs.

The cyclop on the crystal is usually seen at three o clock on the Rolex Submariner or Datejust in order to magnify the date. It is located at six o clock on this watch and to my eyes it gives a lot of vintage charm to the piece. It also sort of balances the dial, which has the metal shield on top and the two subdials on each side. This feature will remain on the following Monte Carlo chronograph.

The dial is very colourful and has a lot of nice 1970’s details to look at. This is the main difference with the Rolex Cosmograph, which had a much more classical and conventional design. The display of the dial and the colors used for the Homeplate are really sexy and definitely unique - in the Rolex tradition at least - and make this watch very desirable. The unconventional shapes of the indexes and the hands add a lot of sex appeal to the watch. Unfortunately, they have disappeared in the later Tudor chronographs. Ref. 7159 for instance has a more conventional dial and hands design.

I have the original bracelet, a folded Rolex Oyster ref. 7836, with the correct 2.70 date code. It’s like new and I prefer not to wear it, as it can get stretch quite easily.

Fakes

Like most rare Tudor/Rolex watches, the Porsche chronograph has been faked. In most cases, a vintage 7734 movement is fitted in a fake case, with also a fake dial and set of hands. You can observe lots of differences with the original on the case, bezel, dial and hand finishing.