Two of my favourite watches are the original Royal Oak from Audemars Piguet, which I love for its slimness and lack of a seconds hand (it frees me from the tyranny of the BBC “pips”) and the Rolex Oysterquartz, which I love for the ruggedness of its bracelet design and its mouthwatering accuracy.
And, like many, I have often looked at the two of them as almost “brothers from a different mother” and wondered if there was a connection. I recently discovered that there was, and it was even closer than I had thought.
The Oysterquartz (170xx and 190xx) models are some of the least well-known Rolex watches, so it is understandable that most people don’t even know that there was an earlier Rolex quartz wristwatch, the reference 5100.
Rolex 5100 Beta-21
The Rolex ref.5100, aka "The Texan"
Christopher Beccan

In order to discuss this, we have to go back 40+ years, to the start of the quartz wristwatch era. The first quartz clocks were the size of a small room; by the 1950s they were the size of an American two-door refrigerator, and the world was astounded when Seiko produced the world’s first portable quartz timepiece, the QC-951 in 1963. It was the size of a Marine Chronometer and was powered by normal commercially available batteries.

The various firms involved in the project sent their best brains to work on the quest, but the problem was that there was no agreement on how the new electronic watch should work: should it be a purely electronic version of a conventional watch (like the Hamilton or Lip watches); should it use a resonant source (like the Bulova Accutron’s tuning fork), or should it be a quartz watch?
While the various factions at CEH fought it out in the boardroom, the backroom boffins decided to make a working prototype using quartz, just to prove it could be done. This was the Beta 1, shown in July 1967. It was definitively the world’s first quartz wristwatch, but instead of revising the design for mass production, the folks at CEH continued to squabble and it was another two years before they were ready with their first production movement, the Beta 21, which (in fact) had almost nothing in common with the Beta 1.
The Beta 21 was a large movement, measuring 30.9mm x 26.5mm, which presented the watchmaking partners with a problem. Absolutely none of them had a case which would take this movement.
At this point, it is important to understand how Swiss watch firms worked in the 1950s & ‘60s; they made only movements; cases, dials, bracelets & hands were produced by a wide range of specialist firms. And so the manufacturers called up their case suppliers, gave them the specifications of the new movement and requested case designs from them. Remember too that up until this point the equation for pricing Swiss watches was: the more accurate it is, the more it costs.

Rolex
Ref. 5100 on the wrist, showing that chunky case design
Christopher Beccan

The most massive of all the Beta 21 watches was the Rolex version, known within Rolex as the reference 5100 and to collectors as “The Texan”. It bore zero resemblance to any current Rolex, having essentially a tonneau shaped case surmounted by a round bezel & dial. What was most unusual for Rolex was that the tonneau section was very angular.
Rolex had always made their watches with almost organic curves, which blended into one another; not here – the 5100 had mostly flat surfaces. And, unlike any previous Rolex, the massive three-link bracelet, which drew no inspiration from any existing Rolex bracelet, was permanently attached to the case. Of course, it could be removed for servicing the watch, but there was no way that an alternative strap or bracelet could be fitted.

Rolex
Christopher Beccan

Rolex produced exactly 1,000 of these watches in just over two years, and most unusually for Rolex, they individually numbered them from 001 to 1,000. But that wasn’t the end of the quartz saga for Rolex; five years after the demise of the Texan, the Oysterquartz was born and it was everything the Texan wasn’t.
It had an in-house movement, newly developed by Rolex; it was an Oyster with a screw down back and crown, and it was available in every metal and combination. But its design drew inspiration from the Texan, with even more pronounced flat surfaces and sharp angles, and it retained an unusual non-detachable bracelet.

Rolex
Christopher Beccan

I nodded and agreed, wondering inside my head what a Genta-designed DateJust would look like, at which point he dropped the bombshell. “He only ever designed one watch for Rolex,” he sayd. “It was their first quartz watch, many years ago.”

Rolex
The Rolex Oysterquartz
Christopher Beccan

Suddenly it all fell into place: the Oysterquartz was designed by Rolex, no doubt about it, but its design was heavily influenced by the design of the Texan, which we now know was designed by Genta. The Texan was launched in March 1970, meaning it was designed in late 1969; the Royal Oak came just two years later.
So, was the design of the Royal Oak influenced by the Rolex Texan? We can’t say it with absolute certainty, but the fact that they both came from the mind of the most creative watch designer of the 20th century, and given the closeness in timing, it would be extraordinary if it wasn’t.