Tudor Watches 2024: The Year in Review

Tudor spent much of 2024 giving enthusiasts exactly what they’d been asking for. While we may not have seen anything in the way of wholly new or novel collections, we did see a consistent level of refinement and improvement in areas that needed it most. You could call it a relatively conservative year for the brand, but in reality it was anything but. Tudor’s decision makers demonstrated that not only do they listen to feedback, but that they understand how to incorporate it in a thoughtful manner without compromising on the brand’s broader goals. The sum total of the watches released by Tudor in 2024 establishes a stronger foundation for existing fan favorites, and paves the way for some highly anticipated releases in 2025.

Tudor continued to strengthen its core this year with welcome additions to the Black Bay and Pelagos collections. Within this framework we also saw watches dedicated to Tudor’s strategic partnerships in the world of cycling and in Formula 1 racing. As usual, there were a few surprising decisions thrown into the mix, but generally speaking, this was a very smart year for Tudor, and one that opens the door for a very exciting 2025. Tudor has proven adept at small but meaningful course corrections that breathe new life into established collections without compromising the formula that makes them great. 

This is exemplified with the new Black Bay 41 watches, the first of which was last year’s version of the Black Bay Burgundy. A host of small adjustments made for a much more graceful overall presence on the wrist, including a trimmer case, and a new five-link bracelet. This year, Tudor followed up on that with a Black Bay “Monochrome,” a modern black-and-white take on the OG Black Bay formula that kind of beats Rolex’s Submariner at its own game. This wasn’t the show-stopper release of the year, but in hindsight I think this is a big winner, as enthusiasts slowly catch on to just how good this watch is. 

The release that did grab most of the headlines from Watches & Wonders was the new Black Bay 58 GMT, a watch that fans had been asking for since we first saw the GMT complication make an appearance in the collection back in 2018. The 58 GMT addressed the biggest criticisms of the original, namely the case size and thickness, but also used a new movement, the MT5450-U, allowing for a much more pleasant, 12.8mm-thick watch. Theoretically, this movement opens the door for a multitude of new GMT watches from the brand without worry of overly thick wrist profiles, something that the Black Bay Pro also suffered from. These are concepts now ripe for revisiting.

The Black Bay 58 GMT brought us the movement we’ve been waiting for, but Tudor’s execution of the rest of the watch was a bit more polarizing. The black, gold, and red tones work toward a throwback look, which is a trend that’s getting a bit long in the tooth for some enthusiasts. It’s well done here, and perfectly handsome, but seeing the black-and-white Black Bay 41 alongside it highlights just how well these designs work in more modern guise. My biggest hope for 2025 is seeing more color options added to the Black Bay 58 GMT family, because this size and feature set is dialed in to perfection. 

There were a few more surprises to come in the Black Bay family throughout the year, primarily in the Black Bay Chronograph family, which saw a lovely, navy blue colorway added relatively recently, and a more unexpected pink-dial variation released mid-year. The new dials fill out the collection nicely, and even bring some levity to the table, but the cases here remain a tricky proposition for smaller wrists. Some refinements similar to those that we saw in the Black Bay 41 range would be welcome here, and could even set the stage for another go at the heritage designs reminiscent of the Monte Carlo and Homeplate 7100 series chronographs from the 1970s. 

We now move over to the Pelagos collection, in which the FXD family continues to expand this year, most recently with the release of the FXD GMT. This watch makes use of the same MT5652 caliber that we saw in the aforementioned Black Bay GMT, though here Tudor somehow managed to fit the movement within the same 12.7mm-thick case as the time-only references. I suspect this movement was used in order to keep the date aperture in a reasonable position at the perimeter of the dial, where using the 58 GMT movement may have pushed it too far to the dial’s interior. Either way, it’s refreshing to see that the movement works in a case with these dimensions, and offers yet another path forward to more interesting new watches to come. Keep an eye out for much more of my thoughts on the FXD GMT coming soon. 

That wasn’t it for the FXD family, however. Earlier in the year, we got an FXD Chrono “Cycling Edition” that made use of the same carbon composite case we saw in the Red Bull Alinghi edition FXD watches from last year. The Cycling Edition used a unique tachymeter scale indexed to speeds experienced by cyclists. The red colors against the matte black base create one of the sportiest takes on the FXD to date, even if it does muddy the waters a bit on what the FXD is within the broader Pelagos collection. 

As successful (and diverse) as the FXD has become, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it spun off into its own collection, separate from the highly focused Pelagos dive watch collection. The FXD simply designates the “FiXeD” lug structure, and clearly the examples we’ve seen released this year push the boundaries of what we identify as the Pelagos, into true spec-built tools rather than pure dive watches. On that note, we haven’t seen the regular Pelagos collection get much love lately, something I hope to see addressed next year. Perhaps Tudor will work to clarify this collection as a whole in the process. 

Each of these watches released in 2024 by Tudor represents a small step forward for their respective collections. They bring more options across a greater level of ergonomic awareness, and further establish the brand’s value within the highly competitive $4k - $6k price range. Tudor delivered exactly where it needed to, and the other half of a successful year is the brand’s ability to get its new watches into the market upon release, even if it is in small numbers. As Tudor looks ahead, I hope that it continues to improve on the small details even if it's focusing on bigger or flashier releases, and retain a sound base for the company’s core fans. Tudor may have helped contribute to the throwback trend that’s taken ahold of the industry for the past decade, but it has also figured out how to evolve, and continue to push its most popular designs into new and interesting territory, and for that, I think Tudor did exactly what it needed to do in 2024.