A buddy of mine texted me a photo recently of his grandfather’s old Timex. It’s one of those hefty rectangular dress pieces from decades back, the kind that sat in a drawer for years until he dug it out, dropped in a fresh battery, and watched it start ticking again like nothing had happened. He kept calling it the “Tank,” and I understood the instinct. That shape has a way of outliving trends. So the timing felt almost too convenient when Timex announced a steel version of the 1976 Lexington Reissue Inspired.
If you’ve followed Timex over the last couple of years, you already know the brand has been circling this rectangular dress format for a while. There was the Noah collaboration in 2024 that leaned hard on the Cartier Tank blueprint and sold out more than once. Then a Todd Snyder Lexington turned up on his runway in late 2025 before reaching buyers this spring. The gold-tone Lexington Reissue arrived in March and vanished fast. This new steel model feels like the one a lot of us were quietly waiting for.
The changes are simple, and that’s the point. The gold plating is gone, swapped for a polished stainless steel case that measures 21mm wide, 36mm lug-to-lug, and 8.5mm thick. The silver-tone dial keeps its vertical brushing, its elongated Roman numerals, and the railroad minute track, while the little alpha hands now carry a blue coating. Steel with blue hands is about as Cartier a move as Timex can make here without a lawyer getting involved. A raised mineral crystal sits slightly proud of the case, giving the profile that soft vintage curve when light catches it.
Under the caseback it’s a quartz movement, two hands, no seconds hand. That keeps the price down and maintenance close to nothing, and on a watch this small I don’t miss a running seconds hand at all. Water resistance is 30m, which makes this a shirt-cuff watch and keeps it well away from the pool. The brown crocodile-grain strap is LWG-sourced leather on quick-release spring bars, finished with a signed pin buckle. At $149, that’s a lot of dress watch for the money, and it undercuts just about every other honest route to the Tank look short of trawling the vintage market.
A few things give me pause. The name is a mouthful, and calling this one “Reissue Inspired” when a “Lexington Reissue” already sits on the same page is the kind of Timex naming that makes you read it twice. The 18mm lug width on a 21mm case means strap swaps will take a little hunting. And if history holds, these sell out quickly, so “available now” might not mean available next week.
Still, I keep coming back to that grandfather’s Timex, dormant in a drawer for years and firing right back up on a cheap battery. That’s the appeal of a rectangular watch you never have to baby. Whether this steel Lexington sticks around long enough to become somebody’s hand-me-down is the part I can’t answer yet. I think it has that potential and I love that Timex is still one of the best brands when it comes to revisiting heritage designs.
Co-Founder & Senior Editor
Michael Peñate is an American writer, photographer, and podcaster based in Seattle, Washington. His work typically focuses on the passage of time and the tools we use to connect with that very journey. From aviation to music and travel, his interests span a multitude of disciplines that often intersect with the world of watches – and the obsessive culture behind collecting them.