Thank you to p.s.khinda for sharing his knowledge and photographs for this article.

Imagine you work at General Motors in the 1950s. Better yet, imagine you’re an executive at General Motors. And not just any executive, but the kind with the confidence — even arrogance — to say, as GM CEO Charlie Wilson once (kind of) said, that “what’s good for General Motors is good for America.”

You sell over half the cars in America, you make decisions for one of the most powerful industrial corporations in the world, hell, you helped the Allies win World War II. What else could you possibly need?

Perhaps, a Patek Philippe. And, not just any Patek Philippe, but one that’s made especially for GM, with “GM” in the very reference number to signify the company’s importance.

Enter the Patek Philippe Reference 1578GM. With only about 20 examples manufactured, the 1578GM was reserved for the most senior of GM executives. On the back, each example is engraved GMC-GMOO or GMOO, for General Motors Overseas Operations (GMC for General Motors Corporation), along with the recipient’s name. As indicated with years engraved on the case back, the watch was typically gifted to a GMOO executive on their 25th anniversary (sometimes 30th anniversary).

Viva General Motors

Let’s look at just one recipient’s story: one example of the Patek 1578GM is engraved P.W. Copelin on the case back. Records indicate this watch was given to Philip Copelin, who, as Charles Platt, the son of a colleague of Copelin’s helped to document, was a long-time General Motors Overseas Operations executive, eventually becoming the CEO of Vauxhall, then a British subsidiary of GM.

Platt helps tell the story of Copelin brokering the deal to bring the Vauxhall Viva to Britain in 1963 to fuel the company’s expansion. Opel, the German subsidiary of GM, had already been working on a small vehicle to compete with the popular Volkswagen. “I have a feeling that Copelin was the one who encouraged his British colleagues to think the unthinkable: collaborate with Opel,” Platt’s father (Copelin’s colleague) wrote in his autobiography.

I mean, can you imagine being a British executive tasked with collaborating with your German counterparts in the aftermath of World War II? Vauxhall ended up importing the German designs of the Viva, but everything else about the first Viva was thoroughly British; the second model was all British. But, as Platt wrote:

The Viva was very successful, but as [GM] was forced to become more financially prudent in the 1970s, it revisited the idea of “commonality” between its two European subsidiaries. Why should GM bankroll them to create different designs for cars that were of equivalent size and were appealing to similar markets? In 1980–the year when my father’s autobiography was published–Vauxhall ceased to originate cars. Henceforth, its badge would be applied to vehicles that were styled and engineered in Russelsheim, Germany.

So it was that the company which had built the Churchill tank to defeat Hitler became a mere conduit for German engineering. To my father’s chagrin, he even found himself driving an Opel, because this was the only way he could take advantage of the substantial discount that he was still allowed as a former Vauxhall executive.

Sure, these executives were bold, especially during the War, but they also often had the humility — like Copelin — to do what they knew was best for their company. Want to have some fun? Plug a couple more of the engraved names below into Google and see what you can find.

The watch was gifted to executives at GM throughout the 1950s and 1960s, but Mr. Copelin may be the most decorated of the recipients. He worked his way up through GMOO, with stints in France, Belgium, and finally, rising to the top spot in London where he led Vauxhall. In addition, for his efforts supporting the Allied forces in World War II, Copelin was inducted as a Knight into the French Legion of Honor for his work while at GM.

Patek 1578GM: Executive presence

The 1578GM is a watch befitting of a high-powered international GM executive from the middle of the century. It features a black dial to set it apart from the standard Patek 1578, with gold applied Arabic numerals radially arranged at 3, 9 and 12. The gold leaf hands and sub-seconds dial complete an elegant dress watch that demands to be on the wrist of someone making very important decisions in very important meetings. The 18k yellow gold case measures 35mm — large, but not flashy. These were for GM executives after all, not Ferrari. Insides ticks the manual wind Patek caliber 12-400, a stalwart in the brand’s stable of movements. It can be found in any number of Patek references from the 20th century, even serving as the base for more complicated endeavors like the caliber 12-400AM (“AM” for anti-magnetic, used in early examples of the Patek reference 3417). The downturned, flared lugs on the case made by Wegner give the watch’s profile just a bit of flair to set it apart from other Calatrava-style references.

General Motors leads the way

Not only is the Reference 1578GM the only example of Patek specifically adding a company’s name to a reference number, it’s the only example I’ve found of the manufacturer agreeing to so specially commission a watch for another company.

Put simply, the Patek Reference 1578GM represents one of the great industrial behemoths at the height of its power in the middle of the 20th century. It’s the story of a corporation that had the standing to ask for a specially commissioned watch from the most prestigious watchmaker of all time (with their own name in the reference number, no less), along with the influence and executional fortitude to actually pull it off. But, it also feels very comme il faut — of course one of the great industrial powers of the last century would celebrate its highest executives with a specially commissioned timepiece. It could never be any other way.

As the story of Vauxhall alludes to, GM began more consciously running its business by the 1970s, cutting costs and realizing operational efficiencies. The 1578GM is of a prior generation, when larger than life executives still trolled the hallways of Detroit and Fifth Avenue, built things, dreamed up memorable ad campaigns to sell those things, and wore beautiful watches.

Abbreviated list of examples of the Patek Philippe Reference 1578GM and the name engraved on the case back:

S.W. Brooks (Rolex Forums)

F.C. Forsberg (Matthew Bain)

M.J. Gaffney (Robert Maron)

W.D. McCauliffe (Hodinkee/Wind, via Matthew Bain, also sold by Auctionata)

A.E. Mayer (Alessandro Ciani)

G.R. McNab (Sotheby’s)

K.P. Smith (Christie’s)

G.L. Terpenning (Robert Maron)

W.L. Westmann (Collectability)

Unknown (Antiquorum)