This $1.3 Million Richard Mille Watch Is Basically an Analog Ferrari

Date:2025-08-22 00:01:20 Category:Car Views:1 Comment:0

richard mille rm 4301 tourbillon — Richard Mille RM 43-01 Tourbillon Split-Seconds Chronograph Ferrari in Carbon TPT, $1,535,000, richardmille.com. Troy Covey

The skeletonized watch is foundational to the Richard Mille brand; the Swiss company’s original offering, the RM-001 Tourbillon, flaunted its internal systems through its crystal. But the new RM 43-01 Tourbillon Split-Seconds Chronograph Ferrari, the latest piece in the watchmaker’s partnership with the automaker, is a skeletonized watch that is uniquely Ferrari-adjacent, both in function and in form. While it bears the familiar tonneau form factor of other RM watches, the Prancing Horse connection here is not merely superficial.

This story originally appeared in Volume 30 of Road & Track.

This timepiece performs the primary functions traditionally required at the pit wall. It has stopwatch capability, with an additional hand that can time two events that start simultaneously, such as lap splits. A tourbillon cage housing the escapement, hairspring, and balance wheel keeps the timing exceedingly accurate.

Moreover, the RM 43-01’s flamboyantly displayed mechanicals have hallmarks of Ferrari styling. Indeed, Ferrari chief design officer Flavio Manzoni was involved in the RM 43-01’s development. Among the watch’s 514 parts are hexagonal socket head screws inspired by those used on Ferrari engine covers, bridges with an X motif that recalls the bracing of a Ferrari crankcase, and pusher buttons that look like the SF90’s rounded-rectangle taillights. The strap even has indented offsets that echo the nose of the 488 Challenge Evo car.

“True luxury is when the client feels like you took everything to the limit,” says Alexandre Mille, son of Richard and the company’s commercial director. “We are natural partners with Ferrari because neither of us compromises on anything.”

Richard Mille will make just 150 of the 43-01s, 75 in titanium and 75 in a case made of hundreds of compressed plies of carbon fiber that looks like a piece of charcoal yet is somehow glorious.

The prices are $1,300,000 for the titanium watch and $1,535,000 for the carbon-fiber version. So the RM 43-01 is Ferrari-adjacent in more ways than one.