With Watches and Wonders 2026 just around the corner (April 14th-20th, 2026), naturally, the Rolex rumor mill is very active.
This year, the biggest rumor, is that one of Rolex’s hottest, best value retention models, the GMT-Master II Pepsi (Ref. 126710BLRO), may be discontinued in April.
The GMT-Master II’s current design dates back to Baselworld 2014, in 18K white gold, and Baselworld 2018 in stainless steel.
Notably, Rolex introduced the (Ref. 126710GRNR), with a black and gray ceramic bezel, to the GMT-Master II collection in 2024, which has certainly been a popular model. However, the “Pepsi” GMT-Master II, with it’s signature red and blue bezel is still the model that’s worth more, and thus considered more desirable.
Being the presumed best selling GMT-Master II, would make discontinuation a terrible decision from most outside perspectives. However, Rolex has reportedly had manufacturing issues with the ceramic bezel since launching it, particularly the red portion, which has resulted in a red color that loses some of its vibrance and turns to a duller brownish/orange hue. I saw what I believe was a (Mark 1) ceramic Pepsi bezel earlier this week, on the wrist of the tailor I go to, and it had the faded red hue, which in my opinion, looked more like the previous generation’s aluminum bezel inserts, and personally I liked that it looked that way.
Nevertheless, this color issue was reportedly fixed with a (Mark II) version of the bezel years back, but it could perhaps still be a problem, that causes high rejection rates and slows the production line.
Reports, not confirmed by Rolex, suggest the specialized alumina-based ceramic required for the red color causes a high rejection rate, creating bottlenecks and low supply for retailers.
If this is truly the case, it would make sense that Rolex would make a (Mark III) version, that fixes the issue, rather than discontinuing such a popular model. But Rolex is not a publicly traded company, and often makes decisions that do not follow the norm, yet turn out to be smart decisions for the longterm value of Rolex.
Any stainless steel version of the GMT-Master II, is a coveted, high value retention watch, to the point that driving up demand, artificially, on such a high performing model, would appear to be greedy, if that were truly the goal.
Many unconfirmed reports suggest that the red and blue GMT-Master II has already been discontinued on the wholesale websites that only Rolex dealers have access to, leading to the speculation. Most recently, some reports suggest the model is now available again on those same internal wholesale Rolex websites.
Final Thoughts
With mixed reports, and no real impetus for the Pepsi GMT-Master II model to be discontinued, other than marketing that drives up resale, retention, and ultimately overall sales, during a period where tariffs and uncertain economics have potentially dropped sales, even at industry leader Rolex, it will be interested to see what actually happens come April. Some dealers are already marking up Pepsi GMT-Master IIs (Ref. 126710BLRO), and that alone could be the impetus for people to speculate. Another rumor floating around is that a Coke bezel might finally reappear in the GMT-Master II collection, which would certainly bolster sales. However, if there’s really an issue with the Pepsi red production, taking away one red and adding another seems like the unlikely solution.
