This is the Shinola Monster GMT Automatic, it’s one of the American watchmaker’s more high-end watches, each one is designed and built in Detroit, and they’re powered by an automatic mechanical movement from Switzerland.
Shinola was started to bring back the once great world of American watchmaking, the company now has an expansive range of models from less costly more affordable timepieces to higher-end watches that sell for thousands.
This is the Shinola Monster GMT Automatic, it’s one of the American watchmaker’s more high-end watches, each one is designed in Detroit, and they’re powered by an automatic mechanical movement from Switzerland.
History Speedrun: Shinola Watches
Shinola was founded in 2011 by Tom Kartsotis, originally the co-founder of Fossil Watches. Kartsotis had built Fossil into a company generating $3.2 billion in annual sales on the back of moderately priced, internationally-sourced watches styled with a vintage/classic aesthetic.
His ambition with Shinola was different and far more ambitious – he wanted to create an American watch brand to bring the American watchmaking industry back at an accessible price point, and to prove that domestic watchmaking could work at scale for the first time since the late 1960s.
The Shinola name has deep roots, it originated as a shoe polish brand of the American Chemical Manufacturing and Mining Company, founded in Rochester, New York in 1877. It became a household staple through the first half of the 20th century, its popularity boosted by American GIs who spread its use across Europe during World War I.
The company ceased production around 1960. When Kartsotis and his team were debating what to call their new venture, the story goes that a heated discussion prompted someone to invoke the old wartime expression referencing the polish: “you don’t know sh*t from Shinola” – and the name was settled. Its long dormant associations with Americana made it a natural fit.
Kartsotis chose Detroit as the base for Shinola very deliberately – he wanted to build the company within a community with a long manufacturing history, and to use the brand as a vehicle for local job creation. The company’s headquarters and watch factory were set up in the historic Argonaut Building at the College for Creative Studies, a space discovered almost by accident when visiting Bedrock officials stepped off an elevator onto a vacant floor and saw its potential.
To build out the watchmaking operation, Shinola partnered with Swiss quartz movement manufacturer Ronda AG, which supplied expert trainers to develop a local workforce that had no prior watchmaking experience – many of the early hires had earlier worked in Detroit’s automotive sector.
The watch is powered by a Swiss-made Sellita SW330-2 automatic movement, which is visible through a sapphire crystal case back.
The company’s first watch, the Runwell Limited Edition, launched in March of 2013 in an edition of 2,500 pieces offered in 47mm and 40mm sizes at $550 USD apiece. The run sold out in less than a week. The Runwell remains Shinola’s flagship line and was later expanded with an automatic movement version in 2019.
In December of 2013, the Wright Brothers Limited Edition became the first entry in the ongoing Great Americans Series, which has since honoured Henry Ford, Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Jackie Robinson, and others.
The Lake Erie Monster, introduced in 2017, was Shinola’s first dive watch and its first model fitted with an automatic movement. More recent additions include the Canfield Speedway automatic chronograph in 2021 and the Mechanic, a hand-wound piece launched in 2022 whose name pays tribute to Detroit’s sign-painting tradition.
Over the years, Shinola has grown into a much broader lifestyle brand, it now makes leather goods, bicycles, jewelry, audio equipment, and eyewear, and it opened an 8-storey boutique hotel on Detroit’s Woodward Avenue in 2019.
The Shinola Monster GMT Automatic
The Shinola Monster GMT Automatic is a 40mm stainless steel travel watch with a 10 ATM water resistance rating, that works out to 100 meters (or 330 feet). Its GMT function uses a fourth hand that completes a full rotation of the face once every 24 hours, and you read it against the ceramic bezel which is marked in 24 hour time, to track a second time zone at a glance.
GMT watches were first developed for use by commercial airline pilots in the 1950s, right at the dawn of the age of jet travel. Pilots were flying across oceans or halfway around the world in a day or two, and they needed a watch to help them keep track of time at their origin and destination locations.
The Shinola Monster GMT Automatic is a 40mm stainless steel travel watch with a 10 ATM water resistance rating, that works out to 100 meters (or 330 feet).
The watch is powered by a Swiss-made Sellita SW330-2 automatic movement, which is visible through a sapphire crystal case back. The watch comes on a quick-release stainless steel bracelet, with an extra woven strap made from ocean-bound plastic for style swapping, so one watch can cover both formal and more casual use.
The black version sells for $2,295, and the Monster GMT is also offered in dark olive, navy, whiskey, and a bronze dark brown degradé, each comes with a limited lifetime warranty. You can visit the official Shinola store here.
Images courtesy of Shinola
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
