There’s a scene early in Your Friends & Neighbors where Jon Hamm’s character, Andrew “Coop” Cooper, sits in a backyard somewhere in Westmont Village holding a beer he doesn’t really want, looking like a man who’s been recently divorced and recently fired and is currently working out which of those two things hurts more.
On his wrist is a Drive de Cartier. Steel case, silver flinqué dial, blued sword hands, the cushion shape that looks like nothing else Cartier makes.
It is, as it turns out, the most interesting watch in the entire show. And the show has a Patek Philippe Nautilus 5811 and a Richard Mille RM011 in it.
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What Coop Wears Vs What Coop Steals
The plot of the Apple TV+ series, for the uninitiated, is that Coop loses his hedge fund job, can’t bring himself to tell his ex-wife or his kids, and starts quietly relieving his wealthy neighbours of objects they won’t immediately miss. A Patek here. A Richard Mille there.
The kind of watches that live in safes and only come out for charity galas.
But Coop’s own watch, the one already on his wrist when the season starts, is the Drive de Cartier reference WSNM0004. Steel, 41mm by 40mm cushion case, 11.25mm thick, with the calibre 1904-PS MC automatic inside it. Retail price when it was still in production: somewhere around the $7,000 mark. Current secondary market: roughly $4,000 to $5,000, depending on condition.
That gap, between what he wears and what he steals, is the entire point of the character.
Coop isn’t trying to look rich. He used to be rich, and now he’s stealing from the actually rich. The Drive on his wrist is the watch of a man who bought one good thing fifteen years ago and never felt the need to upgrade.
Why This Watch, Specifically
Cartier discontinued the Drive line a while back, quietly, the way Cartier does most things. It launched in 2016, sat in the catalogue for a while, never really took off the way the Tank or the Santos did, and was eventually pulled. We even did a campaign for it way back when.
You can still find them in pre-owned dealers and the occasional airport boutique sitting on dead stock, but Cartier itself has moved on.
Which makes the costuming choice in Your Friends & Neighbors more deliberate than it first appears. The Drive is a watch for someone who’s a bit out of step.
Not behind the trends, just adjacent to them. It’s the cushion-shaped Cartier in a world that suddenly wants round Tanks and integrated-bracelet Santoses. It’s the watch of a guy who made his pick when 41mm dress watches were normal, and isn’t going to start chasing 36mm just because the internet said so.
That’s Coop. A man slightly out of phase with his own life, wearing a watch slightly out of phase with the current market, in a show where everyone else is dripping in stuff that’s been on the cover of Watch Snob Monthly in the last six months.
The Cartier Cinematic Universe Strikes Again
Cartier has had a strong run on television lately. The Tank popped up in The Bear. The Santos is everywhere from Industry to Succession reruns. And now the Drive, of all things, gets a starring role on the wrist of one of the most-watched leading men of the last decade.
Mildly frustrating timing, given Cartier just relaunched the Roadster at Watches & Wonders 2026 instead of bringing the Drive back. The Drive is right there. Jon Hamm is wearing one on television every week. The case is good. The movement is good. The pre-owned market is hot for it.
