LuxuryWatchesHands-on with the Richard Mille RM 65-01 Chronograph McLaren W1We try out the new £340,000 watch from Richard MilleWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
LuxuryWatchesHands-on with the Richard Mille RM 65-01 Chronograph McLaren W1We try out the new £340,000 watch from Richard MilleWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
We try out the new £340,000 watch from Richard Mille
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
QUICK SUMMARYRichard Mille has revealed a new watch called the RM 65-01, to celebrate the launch of the McLaren W1 hybrid supercar.Priced at CHF 320,000 plus tax, the watch is made from carbon fibre and titanium, and limited to 500 examples.
Richard Mille has revealed a new watch called the RM 65-01, to celebrate the launch of the McLaren W1 hybrid supercar.Priced at CHF 320,000 plus tax, the watch is made from carbon fibre and titanium, and limited to 500 examples.
Richard Mille has revealed a new watch called the RM 65-01, to celebrate the launch of the McLaren W1 hybrid supercar.Priced at CHF 320,000 plus tax, the watch is made from carbon fibre and titanium, and limited to 500 examples.
Richard Mille has revealed a new watch called the RM 65-01, to celebrate the launch of the McLaren W1 hybrid supercar.
Priced at CHF 320,000 plus tax, the watch is made from carbon fibre and titanium, and limited to 500 examples.
I brought you news of the newMcLaren W1just a day ago – the 1,300-horsepower hybrid hypercar that costs from £2m and is already sold out – and now we’ve been hands-on with the perfect watch to accompany it.
They’ve since used that time to build awatchwith a bezel shaped to look like the car when viewed from above. The watch also features push-buttons shaped like the W1’s exhaust tips, and a gear-like crown with the McLaren logo at its centre. Like the car, the watch is built using titanium and carbon fibre, and majors on lightweight performance.
(Image credit: Richard Mille)
(Image credit: Richard Mille)
Richard Mille says the bezel upper is just five tenths of a millimetre thick at its thinnest point, making it the thinnest bezel the company has ever produced. It also developed a new skeletonised titanium dial design for the RM 65-01, based on the pattern of the McLaren W1’s wheels.
The lower-right corner of the dial houses what’s known as a function selector. This operates in a similar way to the transmission of a semi-automatic supercar, and gives the wearer the ability to cycle through W, D and H for the watch’s winding, date and hand-setting modes, with the press of a button on the crown.
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(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
Even the rubber strap is McLaren themed, thanks to its optional Papaya Orange colour, but also with its patterns that are designed to reflect the aerodynamic foils and ducts of the W1’s engine cover and ground-effect spoilers.
The dial features hour and minute hands, of course, along with sub dials for seconds at the six o’clock position, then a 30-minute counter on the right and a 12-hour counter on the left. Lastly, there’s a date window at the 11 o’clock position.
Wearing the Richard Mille RM 65-01 McLaren W1
Right after its global reveal, I was invited to try out the watch for myself. I’m familiar with a broad range of timepieces, but never have I handled a watch with a six-figure price tag, let alone been allowed to try it on.
My initial thought was how, despite looking enormous in Richard Mille’s marketing images, the watch feels surprisingly compact in the hand and on the wrist.
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
Despite having relatively small wrists and preferring watches no larger than 40 or 42 mm, I felt I could wear the RM 65-01 without it looking or feeling out of place – if I were a billionaire, at least, because Richard Mille watches certainly do not come cheap.
This model is priced at CHF 320,000 plus tax, which is about £343,500, or £60,000 more than the average UK house price. It’s undoubtedly a statement watch, as we’ve come to expect from Richard Mille, but when specified with the black strap of the example I tried on, it’s not as in-your-face as I feared it might be. That’s perhaps a role for the orange strap instead.
Richard Mille plans to produce 500 examples of this watch. The first 399 will be offered to buyers of the sold-out McLaren W1, with the rest then available to Richard Mille customers through its boutiques. This is a slightly different approach to previous Richard Mille x McLaren collaborations, where the production numbers of the watch and car were equal.
(Image credit: Richard Mille)
(Image credit: Richard Mille)
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