Richard Mille and McLaren put the Speedtail RM 40-01 into high gear

Updated May 14, 2021 at 3:56 p.m. ET

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The automatic tourbillon McLaren Speedtail RM 40-01.

Richard Mille

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Five years after their partnership, Richard Mille and McLaren unveiled their boldest watch yet, the RM 40-01 Automatic Tourbillon McLaren Speedtail, which is available for $ 1.022 million.

Based on the groundbreaking Hybrid Speedtail, McLaren’s first Hyper-GT and fastest road car ever with a top speed of 250 mph, the watch even beats the McLaren F1. The latest addition to McLaren’s Ultimate Series flagship was unveiled in 2018 and the first car was delivered last year. McLaren limited production of the $ 2.25 million supercar to 106 and everyone was spoken for.

Like the hypercar, the watch emulates the shape of a tear, nature’s most aerodynamic shape.

“The teardrop shape was the foundation of the car and you can see this on the roof, on the general flow of the car’s lines, and we really tried to reproduce that on the watch,” said Timothée Malachard, Richard Mille’s director of marketing. during the video presentation of the watch. “It was a real challenge for us to go back and forth between Les Breuleux many times [Switzerland] and woking [U.K.] to see how we can really repeat the ethos of the Speedtail car in the watch. ”

Instead of adapting an existing model, Richard Mille approached the project from the ground up. Under the direction of Julien Boillat, Richard Mille’s case department spent 2,800 hours over 18 months perfecting the unusual contours of the case, which are significantly wider at 12 o’clock than at 6 o’clock, corresponding to the teardrop silhouette.

The watch, the result of five prototypes, also features a completely new movement, the caliber CRMT4

Richard Mille

“Up to this project, we relied on the automobile-inspired aesthetics and technical details as well as our Formula 1 culture, which has developed over the course of our numerous collaborations with various drivers,” said Boillat in the video. “But the Speedtail is so different and so innovative that we had to distance ourselves from everything that we had done at Richard Mille up to then in order to design a completely unique watch.”

The case, made of 69 parts, combines titanium and high-tech carbon TPT and contrasts highly polished, smooth and satined surfaces to emphasize its unmistakable geometry.

The watch, the result of five prototypes, also features an entirely new movement, the Caliber CRMT4, presented under a domed sapphire crystal with a triple contour to accommodate the decreasing taper and thickness of the bezel.

“We wanted to create an exceptional caliber, designed in-house, taking into account the complications that are essential to the brand’s identity,” said Salvador Arbona, technical director of Richard Mille’s motion division. “An automatic tourbillon with function selection, oversized date display and power reserve offers the combined attractiveness of an attractive display and useful indicators while at the same time maintaining a certain visual simplicity.”

The Arbona team developed the new motor with 672 components, including bridges, bridge screws, base plate and rotor core, all made of grade 5 titanium. The CRMT4 movement introduces a power reserve display as well as the oversized complications in the selection of dates and functions – all brand premieres for an internal tourbillon.

The watch is modeled after the groundbreaking Hybrid Speedtail, McLaren’s first Hyper-GT and his fastest road car ever with a top speed of 250 mph.

Richard Mille

Some wheels feature the McLaren logo accentuating the Speedtail’s hood, while curved parts introduce new surface profiles to translate the vehicle’s curves. Flip the clock and see the platinum and rose gold winding rotor, inspired by the hood of the car and the barrel setting in relation to the roofline.

The mechanism’s gentle downward curve from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock is reminiscent of the brushed metal partition between the car’s cockpit and its body, while McLaren’s signature papaya orange stripe, which runs from the 6 o’clock position onto the integrated rubber band, is the mimics the vertical brake light in the rear window of the Speedtail.

“Our frequent discussions with McLaren have helped us a lot to achieve an intense stylistic synergy between the two objects,” said Arbona. “We had to develop a pure mille product and incorporate the Speedtail spirit.”

Richard Mille plans to produce the same number of RM 40-01 Automatic Tourbillon McLaren Speedtail watches to match the 106 McLaren Speedtails that are being made.