Matt Clymo 
Richard Mille’s new RM 75-01 Flying Tourbillon Sapphire is for a lack of a better word, stunning and combines all the brand’s know-how in aesthetics and engineering!
Let’s face it, Richard Mille knows how to make a watch. But, along with the sports pieces they design for the likes of Ferrari F1 drivers, golfers, tennis players and runners, they sometimes go all out and design a piece that showcases the best of what the brand can do from both a materials perspective as well as its high-end watchmaking. The result is nothing short of spectacular and in this instance, the new RM 75-01 Flying Tourbillon in Sapphire is just that!
In the words of Richard Mille, “Blending the architectural grandeur of Gothic art with the mesmerizing fluidity of water, the collection reveals a sculptural dimension like never before”. And looking at the piece, I think they would be right. Housed in a full sapphire case, the manual winding flying tourbillon includes both a flying barrel and a flying tourbillon, which is rare and are both seemingly suspended in air above the movement’s Gothic-inspired architecture.
“Blending the architectural grandeur of Gothic art with the mesmerizing fluidity of water, the collection reveals a sculptural dimension like never before”.
If we start with the case, the new RM 75-01 comes in three colours. A light pink, light blue and clear, with the pink and blue limited to 10 pieces, the clear limited to 15 pieces. We have spoken a bit about sapphire case design before and the fact that creating a perfectly clear and flawless sapphire case is extremely hard and time-consuming. For the new RM 75-01, Richard Mille has used aluminium oxide (Al2O3) crystals to create the sapphire, and depending on the colour variant, different incorporations of metal oxides into the sapphire crystal which is then heated and grown at very specific rates. Too hot or cold, too long or short and the sapphire can no longer be used.
Once this is complete, Richard Mille then takes over 1,000 hours to machine and polish the case. Yes, 1000 hours! That’s the equivalent of 25 x Mon-Fri work weeks working 8 hours a day, or effectively half a year. This process is split into two parts: 430 hours are spent on pre-forming the case components and 350 hours on polishing the watch case as a whole. The case’s front and back are treated with anti-reflective coating and as the case is made in three parts, Richard Mille has sealed these with two Nitrile O-ring seals to make sure it is water resistant to 30 meters.
Inside, the case houses the RM Calibre – a manual winding 65-hour power reserve movement that is fully skeletonised with a flying barrel and a flying tourbillon. The movement is both an engineering feat and gorgeously designed using grade 5 titanium for the baseplate and bridges, treated with 5N gold or grey PVD coating, whereas the upper flange is 5N red gold, all of which creates a latticework of metal representative of Gothic style – hence the Gothic theme here. All the surfaces and components are finished with sapphire blasting, hand-polishing, including the anglage on the bridges and circular brushing and concave chamfering on the wheels.
The flying barrel at 12 o’clock rotates every 5.2 hours, and because of this, the movement is more efficient and strikes a better balance between power reserve and performance. The flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock beats away at 3Hz and has a variable inertia balance, using 4 small screws on the balance wheel to finely tune the heart of the watch, and the whole balance itself is free-sprung to help alleviate any shocks.
Initial Thoughts
I’ll preface my thoughts by saying that this piece, or pieces as the case is, are priced all over $2M USD, so are in no way within my means of affordability. That said, Richard Mille watches are not for the everyman, nor are they for the average watch buyer or enthusiast. They are for people who have everything else, and when they want the next piece to level up their watch game, they turn to Richard Mille. That or you are Lewis Hamilton, Bubba Watson or Rafael Nadal.
However, there are some lucky people that can afford these and will snap them up. However, for those that can’t, we can dream and this certainly doesn’t take away from these pieces. Delving into Richard Mille pieces allows you to put your “what will I buy with the winning Powerball ticket money” hat on, and image the “what ifs”. Outside this, the watches are stunning no less and the intricacies of the movement, and the amount of work that is needed to produce the cases is astonishing, to say the least. A fusion of art, craftmanship, science and absurdity is what makes Richard Mille, Richard Mille and I for one, love it!
Reference: RM 75-01
Specifications:
- Dimensions: 48.15mm x 39.60mm x 12.80mm
- Case Material: Transparent synthetic sapphire in pale pink, blue or clear
- Dial: Skeletonized with micro-blasted red gold flange and grade 5 titanium bridges and base plate in grqde 5 titanium in 5N red gold PVD
- Movement: Hand-wound mechanical, RM 75-01 calibre with a flying tourbillon & barrel beating at 3Hz / 21,600 VpH
- Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, flying tourbillon
- Power Reserve: 65 hours
- Water Resistance: 30 meters (3 ATM)
- Strap: Rubber strap in different colours based on the variation chosen
