Episode 110 - Jeep X Marathon Watch Official Collaboration

Hey Watch Fans,

I talk about the official license collaboration between Jeep and Marathon Watch.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to watch Fanatics podcasts. If you'd like, you
can follow me David at watch Fanatic David or Kevin
at watchfanatics dot Ca. Please subscribe and feel free to
leave us a five star review on wherever you download
your podcasts. We hope you enjoy the show. Hello everyone,

(00:27):
Welcome back to another episode today. I'm excited to talk
about yet another collaboration. If you have been listening to
most of our episodes, you'll realize that I'm a huge
fan of collaborations. Just off the top of my head.
I know we've spoken about car collaborations, video game collaborations,

(00:47):
pop icon collaborations. For some people, they don't care about them.
They're gimmicky, trendy, trying to capitalize on another market. For me,
I think it's a great way of injecting new life
into certain old models. Also bringing two passions together, you know,

(01:10):
for collectors, that's a win win. Let's see in the past,
being a little biased, I remember a lot of video
game talk off the top of my head, pac Man,
Space Invaders, Street Fighter nineteen forty one. I believe we
even talked about a few of the Donkey Kong collaborations

(01:32):
Kevin and I we've talked with several car collaborations. We
also talked about Bruce Lee, those collaborations, Godzilla. I mean,
the list goes on, but those are really exciting discussions
for me because I love combining the world. I don't
find it trendy. I think it's more about injecting life

(01:56):
into the hobby. I know Kevin, he he thinks they're
more gimmicky. He thinks it's more trying to steal another
market or get the fame off another market. He doesn't
see it as being a pure passion. But he's right too.
I mean a lot of people share his view, a

(02:16):
lot of people share mine. But luckily for me, it's
just me today and I'm going to talk about Jeep
and Marathon Watch. I'm a huge fan of Jeep. I
currently drive a JK U for people. That's a twenty
twelve JK Wrangler Sahara Unlimited, and it's been my daily driver.

(02:39):
I love it. It handles summer very well, take the
top off, it handles all the seasons very well. In
Toronto a joy to drive in the winter, feel so
safe and it's so much fun in the city. I
feel that pothole, streetcar tracks, train tracks, manhole. It's designed

(03:01):
for the Jeep, the Jeep suspension, the Jeep tires, the
drive train is designed for Toronto. We have some of
the worst streets in my opinion, and it's perfect. And
not to say I only love Jeep. I love all cars.
I really do. I'm not married to one brand or
one genre. It doesn't have to be an import, it

(03:22):
doesn't have to be domestic. It doesn't have to be
an suv, Sedan, hatchback, whatever. It just has to make
me feel happy. It has to make me feel like
I have some lineage to automotive history. And when I
step out of my house or step out of business,
or step out my work and I see my car,

(03:45):
whether it's presently the Jeep or any other car, it
just has to put a smile on my face. And
it has to have that cool factor, which this Jeep
has plenty of, so much so that I'm actually looking
at an old TJ to add to my collection, an
older Jeep. Not that I have a car collection, but

(04:06):
I want another car. I want a passion piece. I
want a fun car to enjoy, also to ranch on.
To be honest, who knows if I win the LATTO,
I would probably even go deeper in history and buy
a CJ Jeep, which was one of the first jeeps
I fell in love with in the TV show I

(04:27):
saw called Danger Bay back in the eighties, and it
was a jeep I fell in love with. But enough
about the jeep for now, we're going to come back
to it. I am going to talk about Marathon Watch.
This is a company that Kevin and I have discussed
a few times in the past. For myself, I've always
wanted a Marathon Watch, partly because I wanted a tritium

(04:49):
tube and a Canadian watch company with a tritium tube. However,
I ended up getting a Yes Watch and that sort
of scratched the tritium tube. Shout out to Yes Watch,
beautiful Watch. But I do want a Marathon Watch soon.
So one of the things which makes this collaboration amazing

(05:13):
is a little bit of a historic timeline that we
have to look at Jeep and we have to look
at Marathon. Why this collaboration is, in my opinion, a
very special collaboration that works well well, There's many reasons,
but one of them is the historic timeline. So Marathon

(05:37):
Watch started off as Winstorm Watch in nineteen oh four.
It was later named the Wine Brothers and in nineteen
thirty nine Morse Wine found in Marathon Watch, and at
that point they're supplying precision time pieces throughout North America.

(06:00):
Now it starts to get interesting in nineteen forty one,
and since nineteen forty one, Marathon has been manufacturing timing
instruments for the Allied Forces. So if you own a jeep,
one of the Easter eggs and this is another cool thing.
We'll get back to Easter eggs on a glove box,

(06:23):
the handle of a glove box, you'll see since nineteen
forty one. Before nineteen forty one, the US forces were
looking for a vehicle for the military, and in nineteen
forty Willies Company created some prototypes, two prototypes, I believe,
and in nineteen forty one they went into production. They

(06:45):
were awarded the contract and they went into production. And
that's why you'll even see on some jeeps the Willi model,
the Willy's Jeep. It's a nod back to the original Willies.
And if I ever do a car podcast, trust me,
I will jump into the history of the Willies and
Jeep and the significance of everything and how still important

(07:10):
today in my opinion. But they both have a nineteen
forty one significant start with Allied forces for the military.
And so let's get into it. Let's talk about Marathon
Watch and Jeep. So with Marathon you will see sometimes

(07:32):
SAAR or GP in some of their models, and that
means search and rescue or general purpose. You'll see things
like SS or M that might mean mechanical Q, quartz, SS,
stainless steel, et cetera, et cetera. Let's start off with

(07:52):
an officer's mechanical watch. So they have a forty one
millimeter Willi's mechanical watch, just to give you an idea.
The officer's watch, it's more of it's what you would
see as a standard wristwatch, our hand, minute hand, secondhand,

(08:14):
secondhand in red beautiful with a Marathon logo as well
as a Jeep logo. The officer watches forty one milimeters.
Case diameter thickness is eleven millimeters, lug to lug forty
eight millimeters, and the lug with is twenty milimeters. One
of the first things you'll see on the dial is

(08:34):
that the numbers actually even though they're fully loomed in daylight.
It looks like this nicely aged Patina radium. I love it.
It looks very military and it looks authentic. This watch
does come with a three piece leather strap kit made
from Crazy Horse leather. I believe for limited time. The

(08:59):
collaboration will come with Jeep ducks. It's a special Jeep
Marathon duck collaboration. If you are on the road, if
you see some Jeeps, you'll see ducks in the dashboard
because there's this thing where we give ducks to each other.
Again different podcasts. We'll talk about that later. I think
in my Instagram I received the duck and I took

(09:20):
a picture of it, possibly last summer. I can't remember when,
but it's there as well. Let's go on with the watch.
The Officers Watch is good for five ATM. The Officers
Watch is quartz or mechanical. I want to go into
some of the details of the Officers Watch, and that's

(09:43):
where they really stand out. Like Jeep, these watches have
little Easter eggs. So on the back of the dial
where you change the battery, there is a picture of
the Jeep, the Willies Jeep, and it also has on
the back best in the long run. Now the quartz

(10:05):
movement is at a F zero six dot for zero
two with a plus and minus ten seconds per year.
You'll find the quartz for seven hundred Canadian. And I
say that because there is a mechanical version of the
Officers Watch, and that's using an eighteen jewel SW two

(10:28):
tensh one that's priced at nine hundred and ten dollars.
So if you want mechanical Officers Watch, it's two hundred
and ten dollars more Canadian. I find quarts very easy
for maintenance, but for another two hundred bucks, I mean,
the mechanical option is not bad. Now. One of the

(10:52):
key things you have to keep in mind where you
get the mechanical the case back changes because now you're
looking in a different case back. You don't have that
quartz battery replacement. So on the mechanical the case says
since nineteen forty one, go anywhere, do anything, and almost

(11:13):
right there, I say that's where the two hundred bucks
can come in into play. I gotta say it's in
the front of the watch. Mechanical courts. You can't tell
the difference in terms of design for the back. If
you want the profile of the Jeep Willies, get the quartz.

(11:37):
If you want the since nineteen forty one, do anything,
go anywhere, then get the mechanical. So the other collaboration
is a Rubicon Marathon watch collaboration. So let me just
backtrack a little. So the officer watch looks like a

(11:59):
simple dress watch badge Willies. The Willies was an original
Jeep since nineteen forty one that went into production for
the Allied Forces. Today, the Willies is known as a
more basic, simple, no nonsense jeep. Right, nothing fancy, Rugged's

(12:21):
still rugged, still cool, but no thrills. Is basic. I
mean it doesn't even have automatic windows. It's the roller windows. Now,
the Rubicon and the Jeep family is the more trail,
the more rugged, the more off road ready type of jeep,
much more expensive for people who are going to spend

(12:44):
more time off road. I believe, a more serious machine.
The other Marathon Jeep collaboration is a Rubicon. It's a
Rubicon SAAR Search and Rescue. And let me just get
into it a little bit. First, off water resistance to
three hundred meters. It's got a Uni directional dive bezel,

(13:08):
has tritium gas tubes. Same loom the mariglow loom the
Rubicons compared with a three piece rubber strap kit. The
numbers still have that age radium patina look to it
looks very nice. The Rubicons also come with a date
window and that is displayed between the four o'clock and

(13:31):
five o'clock position. The quartz is a at a five
zero six four one two again with the plus or
minus ten seconds per year. There's an Easter egg on
the side of the case. It's a seven slot grill.
If you're a Jeep guy, you know what that is.
That's the grill of the Jeep. On the case back,

(13:52):
you'll see the since nineteen forty one do anything, go anywhere.
There's a red line between twelveclock hour to the three
o'clock hour and that is inspired by the jeep dashboard.
It is a forty one millimeter case diameter fourteen millimeters
case thickness. LUG to lug is forty eight and lugwith

(14:16):
is at twenty and the price tag on the Rubicon
divers quartz is oney six hundred and eighty Canadian Oh.
I gotta say with the Rubicons you got treatium gas
tubes as well as loom whereas the Willies just had
loom right off the bat. If I had the money,
obviously sixteen eighty Canadian, I would buy the automatic Rubicon collaboration.

(14:41):
But there's a practical sense of me. It says, hey,
and I'm not snobbish. He's a maintenance quartz. If you're
a case back person, clearly the different case back would
be the Willies quartz, where they have the Jeep profile.
To be honest, that really attracts me, and that Jeep
profile I think adds a lot of value to the

(15:04):
Lilies Marathon collaboration. People might look at the Willies quartz
as the cheapest one, but the value added I see
is in that Jeep profile. In the case back, there's
something about the use of Easter eggs I really enjoy
because Jeep is a brand that has Easter eggs. The

(15:25):
Jku I'm driving right now has Easter eggs. It's the
Easter eggs that when people are near my car or
in my car for the first time, it's those Easter
eggs that really stand out and surprise people, and let's
face it, it wins some people over to the brand. It's
those little details that can make a difference. So looking

(15:49):
at Marathon, looking at Jeep, if you're a fan of
either of them, I think this is a no brainer.
If you can afford it to fit in your price range,
go for it. Highly recommend it. I had these in
my hand at the Toronto Timepiece show and I loved it.
And I guy say, this isn't something that they're doing

(16:11):
just because they can make money off it. When as
a time Piece show, I was parked outside the hotel
lobby was a Marathon Jeep gladiator and I was talking
to the owner of that Jeep gladiator. I wasn't sure
what his role was in the Marathon watch company. He
did not say, although I think he's high up. He

(16:33):
didn't want me to probably harass him for an interview
or discount, so he didn't say. But he did share
this story because he's a Jeep guy. I'm a Jeep guy,
I'm a watch guy. He's a watch guy. And he
did say that with this collaboration, the very first Jeep
Marathon that was manufactured was taken to the US and

(16:56):
given to the Jeep President. Something that again cements this
union this collaboration is this story. They have one president
passing on their jeep marathon collaboration to the other president,

(17:17):
and I think that is a special thing. But again
my opinion. I'm not here with my other two hosts,
Carol and Kevin. I'm sure they'll say something different. Let
me know what you think, leave a comment. Thanks for listening,
and I hope to have another episode out for you
real soon. Thank you.