Culture Of Time How Paul Newman’s Daytona Inspired This Teenager’s Painting
I conceptualized the idea this past summer. A lot of it was me just looking at the headlines and being like, okay, yeah, I really want to help in some way. My initial thought was to create a painting and donate whatever it sold for towards a charity. But I wasn’t too sure about certain charities. I talked to friends who are artists and people who are really knowledgeable in this area, and I saw that Africa wasn’t being hit hard in terms of case numbers, but access to education was being severely reduced. Two of my grandparents are from Africa, so I thought it would be a good way to give back to those communities. We have chosen to focus on rural Kenya.
Jonah Hill’s watch in The Wolf Of Wall Street is a baller style move
In a film packed to the rafters with coked-up douchebags, Jordan Belfort’s best friend in The Wolf Of Wall Street, Donnie Azoff, stands out for being particularly obnoxious. Firstly, there’s the teeth, which are an almost phosphorus white and as loud and vulgar as his peculiar brand of fugly WASP fashion. In the preppy style canon, there is something known as “go-to-hell” pants – usually bright red or embroidered with ducks, which are worn as a kind of in-joke among the posh. Azoff seems to have taken this idea and applied it to his outfits from head to toe, only without the irony. White Gucci loafers with shorts and socks, a brazenly striped shirt and pastel pink jumper tied around the shoulders – that’s what Azoff is wearing when Belfort first meets his second wife, Naomi, at a pool party. Unfortunately, Azoff has sniffed so much coke and popped so many Quaaludes that he proceeds to masturbate at the sight of her, in full view of his own wife and everyone else present.
But he does have one redeeming feature: his watch. The Wolf Of Wall Street watches are interesting in themselves. As we wrote in a previous column, the solid-gold watch that Belfort claims is worth $40,000 is often assumed to be a Rolex GMT-Master II. It is, in fact, a gold-plated TAG Heuer Professional 1000 series from the late 1980s, a perfectly good watch that would set you back about $1,000 when it was first released.
Azoff, played by Jonah Hill, however, is wearing a Rolex. Specifically: a yellow-gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona (probably ref 16528) with black dial. The Daytona is legendary among enthusiasts – it is arguably the model that helped make rare Rolexes as stratospherically collectible as they are today. A stainless-steel Daytona once owned by Paul Newman fetched a price of $17.75 million when it was auctioned by Phillips in 2017, making it the world’s most expensive wristwatch at the time. Today, a preowned yellow-gold Daytona ref 16528 will set you back about £26,000. And for those of you with the patience to sit out the waiting list, a brand-new Daytona in yellow gold costs £29,350.
Rolex Daytonas now come in all kinds of bejewelled and bedazzled variations, including the ref 116595RBOW, more commonly known by its street name, the Rainbow. The model, beloved by rappers such as Stormzy (he wore one to pick up his Male Solo Artist Brit Award in 2020), is now one of the most coveted in the Rolex line-up. If it was available in the 1980s it would have surely been just the thing for Donnie Azoff and his white Gucci loafers.
Rolex Daytona 16528, £26,422. At chrono24.co.uk
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For Racers in This Weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, It’s All About the Watch
As the saying goes, “You never actually own a Rolex Daytona. Eventually your son or daughter simply inherits your place on a waiting list.” That said, there’s one surefire way of acquiring one of the most coveted, most collectible, most impossible-to-buy timepieces on the planet: Become a race-car driver and win the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
This weekend, 49 thundering projectiles will line up at Florida’s Daytona International Speedway for the 59th running of this annual Rolex-sponsored endurance event. When the checkered flag drops at 3.40 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon, every driver on a class-winning team—this year there are five classes—will receive a white-dialed, steel-and-yellow-gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona timepiece.
Yes, it might be close to the same watch you could theoretically buy at your local Rolex-approved retailer, but what sets each of these watches apart is the engravings on the back: “Rolex 24 Daytona Winner 2021.”
“Rolex and Daytona are inextricably linked,” says five-time Daytona winner and proud owner of six Rolex Daytonas, Scott Pruett. “To be presented a watch engraved with the word “Winner” after 24 hours of intense racing is a moment that lives with you forever. Your Rolex is a constant reminder of the perseverance and hard work that goes into succeeding at the highest level.”
“Flying Scotsman” Dario Franchitti, who won the 2008 race has stated: “For a driver to win the Rolex 24 At Daytona is an incredible achievement. But to receive a Rolex watch in Victory Lane is the ultimate reward.”
Rolex has deep-rooted connections with the world-famous Daytona race. The Swiss manufacture has been the event’s official timekeeper since 1962, introducing the Cosmograph Daytona watch the following year. And this year’s competition is a landmark as it marks Rolex’s 30th time as Title Sponsor.
The best-known Rolex Daytona wearer is, arguably, the late actor and racer Paul Newman. His Daytona—a gift from his wife Joanne Woodward in 1968 and engraved “Drive Carefully Me”—was sold at auction in 2017 for a record $17.75 million.
Newman won the Rolex 24 GT Class in 1995 at age 70, co-driving a Roush Mustang with NASCAR legend Mark Martin. So, who will be on the receiving end of the famous green box and its coveted Rolex timepiece this Sunday? As always, the competition will be relentless.
The overall winner will most likely come from the seven-car DPi prototype class—the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac starts the race on pole position. For the best wheel-to-wheel action, look to the GTLM class with Corvette, BMW, Ferrari and Porsche battling it out. As for the likely goal of each and every driver? As Pruett says: “It’s all about the watch.”
This year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona starts Saturday at 3:40 p.m. ET. Television coverage will be split between NBC and NBCSN.