Short on time? Rolex launched the Cosmograph Daytona around 1963 with the reference 6239. A version with a so-called "exotic" dial sold badly at the time. Paul Newman wore one through the 1970s, and in the 1980s, as watch collecting took off, Italian collectors started calling the exotic dial the "Paul Newman". In October 2017 Newman's own 6239 sold at Phillips New York for $17,752,500, then a record for any wristwatch at auction.
Backstory
It's easy to forget now, but the Daytona wasn't a hit at first. The reference 6239 came out around 1963. It was a manually wound chronograph with the tachymeter engraved on the bezel rather than printed on the dial, which was a first for Rolex. It was named after Daytona Beach, a nod to motor racing.
Rolex also offered what it called an "exotic" dial. It had a different font for the numerals, small square markers at the ends of the sub-dial tracks, and a contrasting outer seconds track. To modern eyes it looks great. At the time, most buyers didn't like it. Dealers had trouble selling them, and plenty sat in shop cases for a long time.
Enter Paul Newman
Paul Newman was a movie star who got serious about racing. He played a racing driver in the 1969 film Winning, started racing himself in the early 1970s, and kept at it for decades.
His Daytona was a 6239 with a white exotic dial. According to Phillips, his wife Joanne Woodward bought it for him, reportedly from Tiffany & Co. in New York. She had the caseback engraved "DRIVE CAREFULLY ME". It's a lovely detail: the watch was a gift from someone who worried about him every time he got in a race car.
He wore it a lot, and he was photographed wearing it a lot.
Where the Name Came From
Nobody's completely sure how the nickname started. The most widely told version is that in the 1980s, Italian collectors saw photos of Newman wearing his exotic-dial Daytona and started calling that dial the "Paul Newman". Some say it came from a magazine cover. Others point to Winning. None of these theories has been properly proven, and the watch in the film is never shown clearly enough to identify.
What's clear is the timing. The 1980s were when serious wristwatch collecting took off, and Italy was at the heart of it. The name stuck there first, and Italian buyers drove prices for exotic dials long before the rest of the world caught on.
The Sale
In 1984 Newman gave the watch to James Cox, his daughter Nell's boyfriend at the time. Cox kept it for 33 years. In October 2017 it was the star lot at Phillips' first New York watch auction, Winning Icons, and after about 12 minutes of bidding it sold to a phone bidder for $17,752,500. Part of the proceeds went to the Nell Newman Foundation.
That sale changed the conversation about vintage watches. It showed that provenance, the story of who owned a watch, could matter as much as the watch itself. In December 2020 Phillips sold another of Newman's Daytonas, a 6263 nicknamed "Big Red", for $5,475,000.
On the Wrist
A vintage 6239 is a small watch by today's standards, around 37mm, and it feels delicate compared with a modern Daytona. The pushers are pump-style, it's manual wind, and you need to treat it as an old watch. But the dial is the whole point. The contrast and the Art Deco numerals have a character modern dials don't quite match.
The honest downside is risk. Genuine Paul Newman dials are worth so much that replacement and refinished dials are everywhere. Expert authentication isn't optional at this level.
Final Thoughts
The Paul Newman Daytona is the best story in watch collecting. A dial that failed in the shops, a film star who wore one because he liked it, a wife's engraving, and a group of Italian collectors who gave it a name. Without the Newman, the Daytona might never have become the watch everyone wants.
Modern Daytonas still carry that DNA. Ours is a 2011 Daytona 116520 with a white dial. It's no Paul Newman, but it comes from the same family.
