Josh Cartu — watch collection

About Josh Cartu’s watch collection

Josh Cartu is a Canadian-born entrepreneur, racing driver, and professional pilot who has built a reputation across multiple high-performance disciplines. He is perhaps best known as a Ferrari factory-affiliated test pilot and GT racing competitor, having campaigned Ferrari machinery across European endurance and GT series. Beyond the cockpit, Cartu operates within the broader world of luxury automotive and lifestyle businesses, and maintains a visible public profile through social media, where his life split between racing circuits, private aviation, and European destinations has attracted a substantial following. He is, in short, someone who operates at the intersection of speed, precision, and considered taste.

The Josh Cartu watch collection, as far as we have been able to document, reflects exactly the kind of focused approach you might expect from someone who spends his professional life reading instruments under pressure. Cartu has been spotted wearing a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona reference 116506 — the platinum iteration of Rolex's benchmark chronograph. First released in 2013, the 116506 was notable for being the first Daytona ever cased in 950 platinum, paired with an ice-blue dial that is exclusive to platinum Rolex models. The 40mm case houses Rolex's in-house calibre 4130, a column-wheel self-winding chronograph movement that represented a significant technical step forward for the brand when it was introduced.

For a working test pilot and racing driver, the Daytona is a logical choice — it is a chronograph with genuine motorsport heritage, originally developed with racing drivers in mind. But the decision to wear the platinum 116506 specifically, rather than the more commonly seen steel or gold variants, points to someone who knows the catalogue in depth. The reference trades quietly at the upper end of the Daytona market and rarely appears on the secondhand market, which makes it among the more serious pieces in any collection it turns up in.