Introducing the New Tudor Ranger

After the requisite period of social media teasing, Tudor has announced their big new summer release, a relaunch of the popular Ranger. While Tudor has been working feverishly over most of the past decade to build out their Black Bay line, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that, yes, the brand has a history of making sports watches that aren’t specifically made for diving. The Ranger, in this guise, is a simple three handed sports watch that will draw some comparisons to a certain watch made by Tudor’s sister company, which has a somewhat similar name, dial layout, and size. What it doesn’t share with that watch, however, is an affordable price tag, which feels like the most immediate story coming out of this launch. 

This release, specifically, has been timed to mark the 70th anniversary of the British North Greenland Expedition, a two year study by British scientists of Greenland’s massive ice sheets. Members of the expedition were equipped with Tudor Oyster Prince watches, the brand’s first watch to be both automatic and waterproof. Team members were also asked to track performance data on these watches. While Rangers weren’t on the wrists of those explorers in the 50s, Tudor says that this release celebrates their adventurous spirit with an appropriately equipped adventure watch. 

The key design element of the Ranger as we’ve known it since the 1960s has been the large arrow tipped hour hand (often referred to as a “Ranger hand”) and the big Arabic numerals at the cardinal positions. The Ranger has also historically come in a simple Oyster style case that isn’t too dissimilar from the Rolex Explorer, and the watches have frequently been thought of as something of a pair linking the Tudor and Rolex catalogs. Those comparisons are likely to continue with this release, as the case has been sized down from the most recent modern Rangers, going from 42mm to what we expect to be a much more manageable 39mm in diameter. The case measures 12mm thick.  

Mechanically, the Ranger is powered by Calibre MT5402, the same movement found in the Black Bay Fifty-Eight. It’s a Tudor movement with COSC certification, a silicon balance spring, and a long 70 hour power reserve. If you’ve tried on a Black Bay Fifty-Eight, you have a pretty good idea of the type of case that can be built around it, so we expect Tudor has taken advantage of the movement’s versatile size and made a similarly wearable watch with the Ranger as they have with the Fifty-Eight for several years now. Specs for this watch basically check out with what you’d expect from a modern Tudor: 100 meters of water resistance, sapphire crystal, a screw down crown, and so forth. No big surprises here or deviations from the norm.

The Ranger will be available on a bracelet, a fabric strap, and a hybrid rubber/leather strap, and the price starts at a compelling $2,725. Zach Weiss is currently on the ground in London at Tudor’s launch event for the Ranger, so expect quite a bit more from him in the very near future with wearing impressions and even more photos. Until then, head to Tudor’s site for more information.