Jeep’s Unexpected Collab Is the Military Heritage Watch You Didn’t Know You Needed

Few brands have more storied histories with the U.S. Military than Jeep and Marathon. Both brands started supplying products to the Allied Forces during WWII in 1941, with Jeep’s predecessor being the Willys MB (the original army “Jeep”) and Canadian-based Marathon supplying its first field watches to troops that same year. Today, Marathon watches are built to modern military specifications and are in use by American soldiers and their allies around the world.

Now, these two brands, so intrinsically linked to the history of the U.S. Armed Forces, have teamed up for the first time on a series of co-branded watches that are about as tough as you’d expect for a product with the name “Jeep” it.

Drawing Direct Inspiration from Jeep Vehicles

The collab consists of two very different models, a dive watch and a field watch, with each being available with either a quartz or automatic movement. The dive watch is a special version of Marathon’s best-known watch, the Search and Rescue (SAR) diver, and it takes inspiration from the modern Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, a beefed-up, extreme version of the prototypical Jeep.

The word Jeep looks surprisingly at-home on a watch dial. Marathon

The Jeep field watch is much more old-school than the GSAR and is a new interpretation of Marathon’s Officer’s Field Watch. It draws inspiration from the original Willys Jeep and thus has more of a mid-century feel. But it’s still plenty rugged.

Marathon Jeep Rubicon GSAR & TSAR

Available as both a Sellita SW200-powered automatic and an ETA high-torque quartz version, the Jeep Rubicon SAR divers offer all of the toughness and purpose-built goodness we’ve come to expect from the SAR, but with some stylistic touches that look shockingly good.

Both watches are in stainless steel and are only available in the 41mm variant (I’m a little bummed there’s no 36mm midsize version, but can’t win ’em all I suppose), and there’s a little Easter egg on the side of the case in the form of an engraving showing the distinct grill and round headlights of a Wrangler. The 120-click dive bezel is carried over from the standard SAR, as is the 300m water resistance, but there are some big changes on the dial.

To put it simply, these Jeep SARs put on quite the light show. While Marathon’s standard divers only utilize tritium gas tubes for their luminescence, the Jeep versions use both tritium and MaraGlo, Marathon’s excellent proprietary version of a light-absorbing non-radioactive luminescent paint (think Super-LumiNova).

Naturally, the Marathon Jeep Rubicon GSAR is at home inside a Jeep.Marathon

The OD Green strap in FKM rubber is a natural choice for the military-inspired watch.Marathon

The dials feature tritium tubes at all indices and on the hands, while also luming the Arabic numerals — which appear in a new, blockier font inspired by the Jeep Wrangler 1941 Edition — with some nicely fauxtina’d MaraGlo. Even the Jeep logo is lumed, which is a decidedly fun touch. There’s also a red highlight on the dial for the first 15 minutes of the minute track, an interesting choice since this type of flourish is usually found on the bezel of a diver rather than the dial.

The divers each come with an OD Green strap made of FKM rubber (AKA, the good stuff) and include two separate lengths for a regular or short strap. Again, a nice touch that shows Marathon and Jeep put some real thought into this collab as opposed to just slapping a Jeep logo on some existing Marathon watches.

Marathon Jeep Willys SSGP

The Jeep versions of the Stainless Steel General Purpose (SSGP), also known as the Officer’s Field Watch, are a much bigger departure from existing Marathon watches than the SARs. For one, the watches are being produced in a 41mm size, while Marathon currently only makes the standard SSGP in 36mm. The case shape is also slightly different, appearing more sharply angled and more refined.

Then there’s the dial, which looks completely different from a standard SSGP. The Jeep Willys SSGP foregoes tritium completely, opting instead for a full MaraGlo treatment. The numerals, lumed Jeep logo and fauxtina color are all essentially carried over from the Jeep Rubicon SARs, but that’s where the similarities end.

The handset is all-new, with a set of lumed old-school sword hands and a non-lumed seconds hand fully painted in the same Berlac Rouge red color that Marathon uses for the arrow tip of the seconds hand on its Pilot’s Navigator watches. The minute track is also new, as it now is labeled with numerals every five minutes. Finally, the inner 24-hour track of the dial has been jettisoned for a cleaner look overall.

There’s no getting around the fact that the lumed Jeep logo is cool as hell.Marathon

Playing up the “Officer’s Watch” angle, the Jeep Willys SSGP is sold with a brown leather strap rather than a black nylon strap like you’ll find on Marathon’s standard SSGPs. Like the one sold with the Jeep SARs, the strap is a three-piece kit with both standard and short lengths included. The watch’s lugs are drilled, which will make it easy to swap out the straps.

Finally, like the divers, there are two different powertrains available for these Jeeps (see what I did there?). The SSGPQ quartz version utilizes a no-date version of the high-torque ETA caliber that’s in in the TSAR, while the SSGPM mechanical houses a hand-wound Sellita SW210-1 caliber.

Honestly, This Looks Like a Solid Collab

Collabs between brands can be hit or miss, but I think Jeep and Marathon have done a nice job with these watches. The SARs look fantastic, and while I think the SSGPs are a much bigger risk stylistically, I like seeing Marathon get out of its comfort zone a bit.

As for pricing, it’s pleasantly in line with Marathon’s current offerings. The priciest watch is, naturally, the GSAR automatic diver. That’s priced at $1,500. The quartz TSAR is next, with an SRP of $1,200. Those are the exact same prices as the standard GSAR and TSAR, respectively, so kudos to Marathon for that. They could have easily charged extra for these special editions, but they didn’t.

The Officer’s Watches are even more of a bargain. The mechanical is priced at $650, while the quartz version is the most affordable watch in the collection at just $500. All four watches are sold in a special Jeep-branded tin, and all have casebacks featuring the slogans of both Jeep and Marathon.

Marathon is set to officially unveil the Jeep watches next week in Geneva, Switzerland at the Time to Watches watch fair, and they’re expected to go on sale in May.

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