First Look: Doxa SUB 300 Ti5 Clive Cussler, the Icon Resurfaces in Grade 5 Titanium

Doxa just added the fourth chapter to its long-running Clive Cussler edition. The new SUB 300 Ti5 Clive Cussler takes the original vintage-inspired SUB 300 shape and translates it fully into grade 5 titanium, with a sandwich-construction dial in Cussler's signature dark-and-orange palette. Limited to 300 individually numbered pieces, immediately available, and priced at CHF 2,890 / EUR 3,190 / USD 3,390.

The specs

• Case: 42.5mm × 13.4mm × 45mm lug-to-lug, grade 5 titanium, brushed and polished
• Bezel: unidirectional rotating titanium with Doxa's patented no-deco 60-minute scale
• Crystal: glass-box sapphire front with AR coating, screwed titanium caseback engraved with the NUMA emblem, COSC certification and each watch's individual number
• Crown: screw-down titanium
• Water resistance: 300m
• Dial: sandwich-style construction with two superimposed grade 5 titanium layers; the upper is laser-cut to create a relief effect and sandblasted; classic Doxa blackened hands with the oversized orange minute hand; Super-LumiNova on all indexes and hands; date at 3 o'clock with orange numerals 15-7-31 (Clive Cussler's birthday, 15 July 1931)
• Movement: Sellita SW200-1, COSC-certified chronometer, automatic, 4 Hz (28,800 vph), 26 jewels, 38-hour reserve, hacking seconds, hours, minutes and date
• Strap: black Dive Flex tropic-style ventilated rubber with titanium pin buckle
• Production: 300 individually numbered pieces
• Retail: CHF 2,890 / EUR 3,190 / USD 3,390
• Availability: immediate, from doxawatches.com and (for the first time on a Cussler edition) selected Doxa authorised retailers. Part of the proceeds fund NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency founded by Cussler.

Why the Cussler edition, why now

Clive Cussler (1931-2020) is the best-known name in Doxa lore outside the brand itself. The American adventure novelist and underwater explorer wrote the SUB 300 into the wrist of his Dirk Pitt character across dozens of novels from the 1970s onward, and along the way turned Doxa from a niche Swiss dive-watch maker into the enthusiast-recognised name it is today. The three previous Doxa x Clive Cussler editions - the 2018 SUB 300T Clive Cussler with aged case and compass dial, the 2020 SUB 300T Sharkhunter Clive Cussler, and the 2022 SUB 750T Clive Cussler - all sold out at launch.

The Ti5 designation is the material story: the entire case, bezel, crown, buckle and both dial layers are grade 5 titanium (5% aluminium and vanadium alloy, the aerospace-grade variant used most commonly at this tier). Compared with the steel SUB 300 the piece is roughly 45% lighter on the wrist, which for a 300m diver with a sapphire glass-box crystal is a meaningful change in day-to-day wearability. Colour-wise the titanium reads noticeably cooler and greyer than steel, which pushes the orange minute hand and the orange date numerals harder into the foreground.

The sandwich dial is the design story

Where the Ti5 quietly diverges from every previous SUB 300 is the dial construction. This is a sandwich dial: two grade 5 titanium plates stacked with the upper plate laser-cut in the shape of the indexes and hour numerals, so the Super-LumiNova sits in the lower layer and glows up through the cutouts. The upper plate is sandblasted to give a matte, technical texture rather than the painted or PVD finish typical of the steel Sub 300 range. On the wrist that reads as depth and dimensionality on a dial that would otherwise be visually flat.

The other Cussler-specific tell is at 3 o'clock. Instead of a plain date, the numerals cycle in Doxa orange but the design fixes three positions to represent 15-7-31 - Clive Cussler was born on 15 July 1931. It's a small detail that only becomes visible when the calendar wheel lands on those days each month, and it is the sort of easter egg that dive-watch collectors specifically look for.

The movement

Under the screwed titanium back sits a Sellita SW200-1 chronometer, individually certified by COSC. Not a manufacture movement, but a well-understood 4Hz automatic that's now regulated to observatory-adjacent daily-rate standards (-4/+6 sec/day). 38-hour reserve, 26 jewels, hacking seconds, date. The caseback is engraved with the NUMA emblem (National Underwater and Marine Agency, the non-profit Cussler founded to fund maritime exploration), the COSC certification wording, and the individual serial number for each of the 300 pieces.

Buy or wait

Buy if the Doxa SUB is already on your radar and the titanium execution is what has been missing from the modern Sub 300 line. Grade 5 titanium at 300m with a COSC-certified movement, a sandwich dial and a Cussler edition sub-USD 3,500 is genuinely competitive against equivalent spec from the wider Swiss dive-watch mainstream. Previous Cussler editions have historically held or appreciated on the secondary market; there is no obvious reason this one behaves differently.

Wait only if you specifically want an aged-case or blackened-PVD variant. Doxa's Cussler cadence is roughly one new edition every two years, so a future twist on the same platform is plausible.

Doxa notes that this is the first Cussler edition made available through the authorised retailer network rather than doxawatches.com only, which is a real change from the previous three. If you have a Doxa AD relationship, that is now a valid path to buy this reference.