Richard Mille celebrates its fifth year of their ongoing partnership with the British Formula 1 team and supercar maker McLaren Automotive with the most ambitious collaboration to date, the RM 40-01 Automatic Tourbillon McLaren
The attention to detail is extreme, the RM 40-01 comes housed in Grade 5 titanium and Carbon TPT case that is the most obvious nod to the Speedtail, and has one of the highest levels of finishing ever executed at Richard Mille; the 69-part case took Richard Mille a staggering 2,800 hours spread over 18 months to perfect the lines.
“There are many similarities between the way that Richard Mille and McLaren approach common design and engineering challenges, such as saving weight, reducing vibrational impact and minimising resistance, “ said Rob Melville, McLaren Automotive’s design director. “When it came to the RM 40-01, we had considerable input in sharing the highlights of the car and the philosophy behind it. With the Speedtail, we set out to produce a car that had an artistic quality to it. That has certainly come through in the watch, which beautifully mirrors the many various details of the Speedtail in its finish, materials and its uncompromising design.”
Inside is the in-house CRMT4 caliber, automatic winding tourbillon movement with circa 50 hours (± 10%) of power reserve, indicated at 9 o’clock and powered by a planetary differential.
The timepiece comes with an asymmetrical rubber strap allowing the iconic McLaren orange accent coloured stripe seen at 6 o’clock on the movement to extend to the wrist.
Priced at CHF 900,000 (approx. $990,000 USD), only 106 pieces of the Richard Mille RM 40-01 Speedtail will be created, mirroring the production number of the hypercar.
Photos: Philippe Louzon / Courtesy of Richard Mille
