Richard Mille and Ferrari's new watch is barely thicker than a credit card

The Richard Mille RM UP-01 Ferrari watch is a technical tour de force, with a slender case measuring in at an incedible 1.75mm. To put you in the right frame of mind while you stare goggle-eyed at this non-watch-like creation, a credit card has a thickness of 0,76mm or 0.03 inches. That’s thin, and it means that Richard Mille’s tour de force, the mic-dropping RM UP-01 Ferrari, will turn your perceptions of watchmaking on its head. And by doing so, it wins the Thin Trophy by a massive 0,05 millimeters.

At this level, the wrist-one-upmanship is in Mille’s favour, and the scales have been moved by a big margin (or should that be nano-thin?). The previous holder of the ultra-thin championship belt, the Bulgari Finissimo, had its movement integrated into the base of the watch. In contrast, the RM UP-01 is built like a traditional (well..) watch, having a separately assembled movement of just 1.18mm fitted into a titanium case. 

The specs seem incredulous enough, but the usual frailty of these tech-packed wafers of timekeeping is also negated through a litany of strength tests. Richard Mille claims the skeletonized movement plate can withstand more than 5,000 Gs of shock or acceleration. Compare that to a Ferrari F1 driver experiencing between 4 and 6 and a jet fighter up to 9. Not thousands.

Richard Mille has a unique position as a manufacturer of tech-deep wristwear of an unusually colourful variety. But trying this on for size in their London boutique, the monochrome feeling on the wrist is as alien as it is jaw-droppingly beautiful. Though not in the usual sense, more like an apparition of a far-flung future of paper-thin wristwear. 

Your upended perceptions become literal as the broad case doubles as a strap buckle, the strap clicking into the end of the wafer-thin shape. The movement dictates the display, with a visible balance wheel, dial, and function selector filling the top row. Meanwhile, the winding and setting control rest at the bottom left of the tech-minimal titanium case. 

The tech-savvy nature and micro-engineering in any road-or-track-driven Ferrari fits Richard Mille’s ethos, making Ferrari’s black stallion feel at home on the right. At the same time, a tiny pop of red can be seen on the minuscule open dial at 12. Otherwise, the vibe is one of focused instrument clarity. The comfortable wrist-futurism makes you envision piloting the Space X-rocket rather than being ensconced in a Ferrari leather seat, but it feels strangely comfortable.

The Richard Mille RM UP-01 Ferrari on the wrist is difficult to describe to a non-watch-savvy outsider and flies in the face of retro-rich ubiquity. The only Richard Mille tell-tale detail is the visible micro-bolt heads holding together the titanium case, and it’s a cohesive design. It might take more than £1,5 million to acquire one of the 150 pieces of the RM UP-01, but its mere existence defies belief. After all, we live in an era where 20th-century watchmaking techniques still set our design parameters, and this feels like the future.

richardmille.com