Inside the Gumball 3000, the world’s most outrageous motoring event
Swiss watchmaker Ulysse Nardin has teamed up with the world’s most outrageous motoring event, the Gumball 3000. Adam Hay-Nicholls explores the rally’s wild history, its improbable legends and its enduring appeal
Sports cars and watches go hand in glove. Synergies of precision timing and craftsmanship are used to cement the credentials of each brand, whether that’s TAG-Heuer and Formula One, Richard Mille and Ferrari, IWC and Mercedes, and so on and so forth. So, which watch brand would step up to partner with the most unhinged motoring event of them all, the Gumball 3000? This is a rally where the ethos is to be as louche and outrageous as possible and where I can’t imagine anyone’s on time for anything. Enter Ulysse Nardin, a brand that’s giddily embracing the madness.
On the face of it, this anchor-branded Swiss watchmaker has a very respectable backstory. Established in 1846, it’s long been celebrated for its intricate complications and haute horology. Its high-precision marine deck chronometers led to it being embraced by mariners and naval officers. No fewer than 50 navies around the world have endorsed the brand. But far from leaning on its heritage, Ulysse Nardin remains an unconventional pioneer.
In 1988, its Astrolabium Galileo Galilei’s 21 complications set a new record for a wristwatch. A new era was marked in 2001 with the introduction of the Freak, a sobriquet many Gumballers – the crews from Jackass and Dirty Sanchez, for instance – can probably relate to. With avant-garde design, an innovative mechanism and pioneering use of silicon technology, this unique concept featured no true dial, hands or crown. Years later, diamond-coated silicon was introduced.
Gumball 3000:
The company’s independence and maverick credentials were further embossed when, in 2022, it became the first of its kind to achieve a management buy-out (from luxury behemoth Kering), giving it renewed agility and daring creativity. Inspired by the original Freak, the Freak ONE was released in 2023 and won the ‘Iconic Watch’ prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. So it is, perhaps, untethered liberty that led to a relationship between Ulysse Nardin and Gumball 3000.
It seems to take around a quarter of a century for trends to do a lap. That’s why for the past decade we’ve revelled in memories of the 1990s; baggy jeans, chunky trainers, Oasis, a Gladiators reboot, glossy Ryan Murphy-produced tragedies about Gianni Versace and JFK Jr, the persistence of Tony Blair in The Discourse… that sort of thing.
Back in the late ‘90s, it was the ‘70s that many of us had nostalgia for.
This was certainly true of Maximillion Cooper, a well-connected club kid, racing driver, male model and Central St Martins graduate who was obsessed with screwball action comedies that featured fast cars, hot girls and wild men. Movies like The Gumball Rally (1976), Cannonball (1976) and Cannonball Run (1981). The heroes would race across America, outrun the police in their superior machinery, and then party like it was 1999 when they reached their destination.
So in 1999, as it was destined, Cooper launched the first Gumball 3000. Madonna, Guy Ritchie, Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss showed up. It was a 3,000 mile rally from central London to Rimini on Italy’s Adriatic coast, passing through Paris on the way there and coming back via the Nürburgring – the longest and most dangerous race track in the world – which participants tore around in the dead of night.
The cars were a mix of the weird and the wonderful: a McLaren F1 LM (valued at around £45 million today), a Citroën Maserati SM, a Herbie-spec VW Beetle and a Vauxhall Astra police car. Competitors included 90210 heartthrob Jason Priestley and boxer Chris Eubank, who completed the distance in his Peterbilt truck. A clutch of Playboy Bunnies came along for the ride. Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood created race overalls for the Gumballers, and each received a bust of Burt Reynolds.
Finance and tech bros would find themselves driving alongside Formula One stars, DJs, models and a rolling cast of characters that included David Hasselhoff, Adrien Brody and Idris Elba
Each year, the cars, routes, parties and participants got crazier and crazier, V12 exhaust fumes, champagne corks and tabloid headlines trailing in their wake. The US, China, Japan, South East Asia, Russia, the Balkans, Transylvania, North Africa… Almost no sleep was had. Some rallies were held across two completely different continents (Stockholm to Boston, even Las Vegas to Pyongyang!).
As well as hundreds of super and hypercars of varying degrees of taste and social acceptability, the Gumball has seen a Plymouth Road Runner, a ‘bomb-proof’ Mercedes 600 Pullman, a stretched Hummer, a Winnebago, a London taxi, Batman’s Tumbler, and a very boring Lexus LS600 that a colleague of mine from Intersection Magazine (a short-lived gonzo car mag published by Dazed & Confused) covered in a black wrap with bold text that proclaimed: ‘TOP SECRET TEST CAR: DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH’.
Unknown finance and tech bros would find themselves driving alongside Formula One stars, DJs, models and a rolling cast of characters that included David Hasselhoff, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, Tony Hawk, Idris Elba and Adrien Brody. Socialite Tara Palmer-Tompkinson got married to another Gumballer on an overnight ferry crossing.
Cooper and his wife, the rapper Eve, also met and married on the Gumball (although not on the same night). Party hosts included Hugh Hefner, the King of Morocco and Kim Jong-il (the late North Korean dictator did karaoke with Cooper). Just like the partying, some of the driving was excessive – or downright dangerous. A Koenigsegg was recorded storming through Texas at 242mph. A fatal collision in Macedonia led to the 2007 London-Berlin run never reaching its conclusion.
A couple of years ago, to celebrate the rally’s 25th anniversary, the iconoclastic Freak x Gumball 3000 Edition was born. Limited to just 150 units, the orange detailing, orange rubber strap and black forged carbon case utilised Gumball’s own official colour palette.
The Gumball 3000 logo is etched on the case-back. This year there’s a follow up: The Freak x Gumball 3000 Edition 2, a slightly more stealthy expression, though it remains as vivacious and attention-grabbing as the rally participants, who have first dibs on the 150 units. This time, the orange is used more sparsely and the dominant colour is black. It would pair very nicely with a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport World Record Edition – only available in black carbon with orange wheels and skirts.
Its hour disc is crafted from ultra-light Carbonium using aerospace-grade carbon-fibre that’s been infused with orange epoxy resin, and is combined with a black DLC titanium case. For the first time, the wheel is highlighted with an orange Super-LumiNova ring and white details across the indexes and bridges, which sharpens legibility. An open-worked black rubber strap with orange inserts and stitching completes a composition that is both lightweight and performance driven. The price is equivalent to a v-max speeding fine in a Koenigsegg (probably): £35,000.
This is the Gumball’s 26th run (it skipped 2020 and 2021 due to The Global Unpleasantness). The 2026 event skimmed the Gulf of Mexico from Miami to Mexico City, arriving in the Latin capital in time for the World Cup, where Gumballers enjoyed VIP hospitality. The A-list (and, let’s face it, a lot of D-list) stars of the past have largely ignored their invitations in recent years, no doubt put off by the perception that it’s not very woke to be seen loading obnoxiously-stickered supercars onto an Antonov for shits and giggles.
A bunch of nameless rich guys with Lambos and hangovers has, I would argue, caused the Gumball to lose a little of its lustre. But for those with memories of its first decade – whether you entered or just had the noughties PlayStation 2 game and the DVD – it’s a reminder of a less responsible age, where wild men, hot girls and loud and quirky automobiles were considered aspirational.
The Freak x Gumball 3000 Edition 2 tells the world you haven’t forgotten how to have fun, and you’re not afraid to show it.
For more on the Freak x Gumball 3000 Edition 2, go to ulysse-nardin.com; For more on the Gumball 3000 go to gumball3000.com