Hands-On: The Tudor Pelagos FXD GMT

Last month, Tudor took the wraps off of their latest military-derived expression of the Pelagos. Initially following the path of 2021’s FXD Marine Nationale and 2022’s FXD Black (which is colloquially known as the U.S.N.), this latest evolution of the Pelagos strays quite considerably from the original brief by rethinking the FXD as a platform for French Navy Pilots – not divers – along with a GMT function and a coordinated 24-hour bezel. Combine this with a surprising colorway, and you have yet another Tudor that runs the Goldilocks delta of being too much for some, a near miss for others, and the perfect watch for those in between.

As both a complete nerd for travel watches and a huge fan of the Pelagos – I wrote this from seat 14A on a flight while wearing my Pelagos 39 – I knew I needed to see this new model in person.

My colleague Mark covered the announcement with his original intro, and that story includes the raw specs, so I can be brief. The Pelagos FXD GMT measures 42mm wide, 52mm lug to lug, and 12.7mm thick. Most of this is to be expected as the FXD has largely held to its original dimensions (with the chronograph examples coming in at 43mm), but there is some context to this thickness when considering it’s a Tudor GMT. We can get into that shortly.

Beyond the sizing, the FXD GMT offers its flyer GMT function with a grade 2 titanium case, a closed caseback, the model’s characteristic channel “fixed” lugs, and a colorway that borrows some warmth from the Pelagos LHD along with a splash of rich orange for the GMT. The faux-tanned lume has proven to be one of the more divisive decisions made for the FXD GMT, and it certainly offers an aesthetic that feels entirely disparate from the original FXD or the black version but is perhaps more predictable than the carbon-cased blue and red options from the Alinghi Red Bull series or even those made for Tudor’s cycling team.

Initially, and largely informed by the images in the press release, I felt the FXD GMT was something of a miss. The colors in the render didn’t really work for me, nor did the idea that this is meant to be Pelagos, but at the same time, it’s not a dive watch!?

Pedantic, I know, but ultimately, we’ve seen other Pelagi that aren’t meant for diving, and the impetus for the FXD GMT is for pilots, so the GMT-dive format makes sense (you still get 200m water resistance) as a Dive-GMT (with a dive bezel and an internal 24-hour scale) would be too fiddly to use while also flying a helicopter (I assume, but no one will let me try). To be clear, the helicopter mention is mostly in jest; it’s a GMT and a Pelagos. I think that the connection to a specific element within the French military is secondary in terms of appeal for most watch enthusiasts (and yes, the signed soft keeper for the green fabric strap is removable if you don’t want to wear a military insignia).

More Time Zones

Back to the complication, the benefit of the 24-hour bezel is that the operator doesn’t need to change any hands to update the display for another timezone. One simply leaves the GMT hand at UTC-0, and then you can rotate the bezel to account for another timezone via its offset (in hours) from UTC. This layout also gives you a constant view of UTC. From a functional standpoint, the FXD GMT has the same ability as the Black Bay GMT or the Rolex GMT-Master II.

Speaking from the perspective of this vacation-class diver, you could definitely still use this bezel for a dive, especially if the plan was to use it as a backup for a dive computer. So yes, as a Pelagos nerd, I always find it unnerving to see a new model that isn’t primarily designed to be a dive watch, but as Tudor expands the Pelagos to become a sort of catch-all for its modern sport watch designs, a GMT isn’t all that shocking (especially compared to the cycling FXD linked above).

The GMT functionality is derived from Tudor’s MT5652-U movement, which is an interesting note considering that it’s a derivation of the movement from the Black Bay Pro (with the “U” representing METAS Master Chronometer certification). Interestingly, it’s also not the movement from the more recent Black Bay 58 GMT (which, for the record, is 12.8mm thick and uses the MT5450-U)

Why interesting? Because the BB Pro is 14.6mm thick, meaning the FXD GMT clocks in some 1.9mm thinner. In watch terms, this is a lot thinner. This could be a simple expression of Tudor getting better at packaging the movement (indeed, the dial of the FXD GMT is quite close to the crystal), or it could be that the bulk of the BB Pro wasn’t only a question of movement thickness but rather an intentional move to give the black bay pro a feel similar to that of the core Black Bay.

Regardless, I doubt any of us will position the thinner profile as a negative. Thickness is among the core proportions that enthusiasts weigh in the mental math for a new watch, and I think the surprisingly thin profile of the FXD GMT is a big plus for Tudor. Imagine the feedback if the GMT had been 2mm thicker than the standard FXD…

In-person, my initial concerns about the coloring and the GMT-ness faded quickly. While I would personally prefer a colorway closer to that of the Pelagos 39, the FXD GMT looks great in person, and the blend of the tanned lume and the orange accents works much better than I expected from the photos. I also got a chance to see an FXD GMT with an original Pelagos LHD this past weekend, and the coloring looks very similar to that of the LHD.

Yes, if I were in charge, I’d likely start new models with the most neutral color (black/white, blue/white, etc) and then offer other colors down the line. Look at the success of the black FXD. Tudor is very intentional when it comes to color and they don’t often start with the most conventional option, especially outside the standard/dive-focused models.

So we get gilt accents on the Black Bay long before something more conventional like the “Monochrome” BB shown at Watches and Wonders earlier this year. The first FXD had a blue dial, and the BB 58 GMT has gilt accents and a red-black coloring (and don’t lose sight of the original specs for the BB and the BB58). 

For some, the color will be a major appeal; for others, it will keep the credit card in a holding pattern while they wait for the promise of an ideal colorway. And while I don’t have a crystal ball that allows me to see into Tudor’s future, they don’t have a fixed playbook on how they do colorways. The original Pelagos got a few over the years, but we still only have a single colorway for the 39. So, your guess is as good as mine.

On wrist, the FXD GMT wears as well as any of the titanium FXDs I’ve tried. It sits low and flat, wears snugly, and the longer shape of the lugs is largely managed by the included hook-and-loop strap. Again, this is entirely subjective and  for your wrist.  I find the FXD to wear larger than my ideal, but it’s still a very wearable and nicely proportioned watch.

So, if you don’t mind the size of the FXD – by which I mean you’ve tried it on, and it felt good – it’s hard to really present an objective downside about the FXD GMT. The bezel is 48-click, bi-directional, and feels great. The dual lume treatment (blue for time, green for GMT, shown above) is bright and easy to discern. You get 200 meters of water resistance and a date display. The rest is pretty much core FXD, and I’d wager that the standard Black FXD model is among the best sport watches in the world right now. Unless you’re like me and prefer something a bit smaller and with more strap/bracelet flexibility (then go P39).

Have I digressed? Probably. From a personal standpoint, the FXD GMT is not the Tudor GMT of my dreams, but it is a damn compelling option that is also among my fav takes on the FXD thus far. If I’m going to go for something larger than the 39, I definitely don’t mind it having a complication. 

Competition

Finally, let’s consider some competition as no watch, even a popular one, lives in a vacuum. The FXD GMT is offered in a single spec with a price tag of $4,625. At that price, there is a lot of competition. I’d like to dig deeper into the state of the GMT in a future story, but for now, let’s consider flyer GMTs at a loosely (very loosely) similar price point. 

Competition is a bit tough for these because there aren’t many brands currently hitting this price point with a sporty GMT. But let’s kick it off with Grand Seiko, who offers quartz GMTs like the $3,400 SBGN027 or Spring Drives like the $5,800 SBGE201, which is 44mm wide and 14.7mm thick. Grand Seiko makes many GMTs, but they are largely either less than the Tudor (thanks to being quartz) or more, like the Spring Drive SBGE201. 

The other competition that I think is worth considering, even if it’s at a price point under that of the Tudor, is Longines. For $2,975, you can grab a Hydroconquest GMT, which is 41mm wide, has a convention dive bezel, looks great, and offers a flyer GMT. No, it’s not titanium, nor as willfully unconventional as the FXD, but it’s still a dang good GMT from a great brand.

Moving closer to the same price point, the Spirit Zulu Time Titanium comes in at $4,375 and is essentially the production version of the Hodinkee Limited Edition we made previously – a watch I own, love, and wear often. It’s 39mm wide and a bit thicker than the Tudor at 13.5mm (but much shorter at 46.8mm). It’s a great watch, easy to wear, solid movement, grade 5 titanium, etc. In my eyes, this is the strongest competition on the market for the Tudor GMTs.

This brings me to a cascading point – and I’ve said similarly in the past – Tudor’s main competition is probably Tudor. The FXD GMT has to stand up against the OG Black Bay GMT (which paved the way for a lot of watches), the Black Bay Pro, and the Black Bay 58 GMT, all of which are solid offerings at a similar price point.

While I wouldn’t go as far as to say that Tudor has little competition, they have been very intentional about the brand’s price point, and I think it’s clever that the more direct competition for the FXD GMT comes from Longines, but only within the context of having to buy the top-spec titanium model.

To be clear, you can get a solid flyer GMT for under $1000 now, and that wave started with the Black Bay GMT, and now the market has evolved to the point where Tudor has to compete with itself just to remain established at a price point that they largely created in the vacuum under the the GMT-Master II. What a world, and a good one for GMT fans.

Diversification Of The Pelagos

And that’s the FXD GMT. I like it a lot. Even if it’s not the Tudor GMT, I see when I close my eyes. I think they took a specific brief and tailored it to the FXD platform. Beyond the specific watch and its connection to the French Navy, I find it genuinely fascinating that the Pelagos is essentially becoming Tudor’s modern professional line-up—even beyond diving.

It’s almost as though Tudor is taking a few pages from the script Rolex has long followed for their professional lineup, with the models reflecting the areas of Tudor’s interests. Where Rolex had Everest, diving, pan-am pilots, and cave exploring, Tudor has diving, cycling, sailing, and the connection to the French Navy, now including their expression of the same function Rolex built for pilots in the ’50s.

So what comes next? I think we all want to know. A Pelagos Ranger? I kid, I kit. But maybe More colors? This may not be everyone’s dream Pelagos, but the dream of the Pelagos appears to be alive, well, and willing to evolve.

​Hodinkee 

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