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STYLE Edit: Richard Mille unveils the world’s thinnest watch – the RM UP-01 Ferrari is a 1.75mm timepiece that perfectly fuses the craftsmanship of luxury watchmaker and carmaker

Richard Mille releases the world’s thinnest watch, RM UP-01 Ferrari, a collaboration between the Swiss watchmaker and the Italian carmaker. Photos: Richard Mille

Many watchmakers claim to be innovative in their approach to design, and regularly herald their watches as great technological leaps forward. Almost all of them, however, are really just tinkering at the margins when compared to the mind-blowing RM UP-01 Ferrari, an ultra-thin, ultra-flat watch that looks like absolutely nothing that has gone before it.

Merely 1.75mm thick and weighing only 2.82 grams, Richard Mille’s UP-01 Ferrari watch is ultra-thin and ultra-flat with a cutting-edge design.
Ferrari and Richard Mille formalised their official partnership in 2021. A match made in heaven, thanks to the two companies’ shared commitment to technological innovation and high performance, it has seen Richard Mille support Ferrari in Formula One and at various other levels of racing, as well as backing its driver academy and its Ferrari Challenge series for non-professional drivers.

Driving change with Amanda Mille, daughter of Richard Mille

Now the fruits of this multifaceted partnership also include a timepiece specifically inspired by Ferrari – and what a timepiece it is. A tour de force of horological innovation in both construction and aesthetics, the RM UP-01 Ferrari is the thinnest watch ever made, slimmed down to an astonishing 1.75mm. The result of more than 6,000 hours of development and laboratory testing, it involved throwing out conventional watchmaking wisdom and starting again from the drawing board.

A close-up of the movement in the ultra-slim Richard Mille UP-01 Ferrari watch, of which the case is made from grade 5 titanium.

Perhaps most remarkable of all, the RM UP-01 manual winding movement with hours, minutes and function selector that powers the watch measures just 1.18mm thick, weighs just 2.82 grams and yet still manages to hold a power reserve of 45 hours. That movement is entirely contained within the case, as in traditional watch design, rather than the caseback forming the baseplate of the movement, which makes the technical feat of slimming it down so far even more challenging.

Ferrari Formula One racer Carlos Sainz sporting the Richard Mille UP-01 Ferrari watch.

STYLE Edit: Inside Richard Mille Racing Team’s rapid journey since 2020

The case is made entirely from of grade 5 titanium, as are the baseplate and the skeletonised bridges. The dramatic readout, which takes its cues – unsurprisingly – from the dashboard of a high performance car, is radically different from anything you’ve ever seen on a watch dial before.

The RM UP-01 Ferrari is available in a limited edition of 150 timepieces and, as with a Ferrari vehicle, you can be certain no one will ever mistake yours for anything else.

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Style Edit
  • Driver Carlos Sainz has modelled the watch, made of grade 5 titanium with a readout inspired by a racing car dashboard and measuring just 1.75mm thick, while weighing only 2.82 grams
  • It took 6,000 hours of development to get from the drawing board to reality for the watch, which will be limited to just 150 pieces