Feature: This Insane $1million Richard Mille Could Save Your Life
The chances of finding yourself stranded in a jungle or desert and having to claw your way back to civilisation must be extremely remote, unless you’re a soldier in the special services. But peace of mind is a marvellous thing, and wearing this Richard Mille 25-01 Tourbillon Chronograph Adventure certainly provides some of that.
Of course, you’ve still got your work cut out for you if do get stuck in the wilderness. This watch hasn’t got a built in Taser gun to fend off marauding wolf packs. Neither will it provide food and shelter or summon a rescue team to airlift you to safety like Breitling's Emergency watch—although for the exorbitant price you’d be well within your rights to expect it to.
Sadly no in-built weapons, but it does store water purification tablets
But survival is all about those small percentages, right? And most of us, given the opportunity to increase our chances of not dying, will take it. Even if it means forking out a million dollars.
Because that’s how much this watch costs. A cool million bucks! And for that, you get some typical Richard Mille features and specs—TPT carbon case, high-strength titanium components, skeletonization —alongside a host of extras that makes it the ultimate billionaire’s survival kit.
This isn’t so much a tool watch as a horological Swiss Army knife, and was created with input from the Hollywood legend Sylvester Stallone, which is a curious collaboration. We wonder whether Richard Mille got Sylvester confused with his Rambo character.
Who knows, maybe Bear Grylls was off drinking his own urine from a camel bladder in the middle of the Sahara and couldn’t be reached. Never mind!
Let’s take a look at this million-dollar monster…
Survival Mode
What differentiates this watch from a typical Richard Mille is what lies either side of the crown.
Where normally you would find a pair of pushers performing some kind of technical function—eg to activate the chronograph—the protrusions you see on the right side of this watch are basically tiny storage containers.
The super-tough TPT Carbon case is a whopping 51mm
The one at 2 o’clock is a titanium waterproof compartment that holds three water purification tablets while the one at 4 o’clock is a spirit level in a titanium bubble. The latter makes it possible to hold the watch exactly horizontal to improve accuracy when sighting with the compass needle.
Ah, yes. The compass. It wouldn’t be a true survival watch without being able to tell you which direction you’re going in (although you can do this with any analogue watch if you know how).
This is attached to the case via a bayonet mount for easy removal and can also be attached to a separate titanium map-scale with a lanyard.
As for the chronograph pushers, they’re inconspicuously placed on the other side of the case to keep the dimensions of this watch—already massive at 51mm across and almost 24mm thick—from wandering into beer barrel territory.
Should you also have to swim across an icy river while finding sanctuary, you’ll be pleased to know it’s also water resistant to 100 metres.
Tourbillons Can Tough It Out
If there’s one watch myth that Richard Mille has dispelled, it’s that movements with tourbillons don’t have to be treated with kid gloves.
Housed in super-tough cases of grade 5 titanium or, as with this model, Carbon TPT®, they can take a bashing from a ferocious tennis rally, the high-octane tumult of the racetrack or indeed a survival mission in extreme terrain.
A million dollars gets you a watch that could literally save your life
Chances are, they’ll even survive a wild animal mauling. Therefore, when what's left of your rotting carcass has eventually been discovered, your trusty Richard Mille should still be in fine fettle.
One thing you will have to do if you’re in survival mode is keep an eye on the power reserve indicator as this watch runs on a manual-wind movement. This isn’t ideal if you’re somewhere freezing cold and have to remove your gloves, risking frostbitten fingers.
Another complication that will come in handy is a 24-hour display, and there’s also a protective cover for the compass that covers the whole watch, shielding it from the worst of the elements.
So, Those Water Purification Tablets…
No doubt many of you will be thinking, ‘Hang on a minute, I can just buy water purification tablets from the pharmacy for the price of a Snickers bar. Isn’t this gimmickry at its worst?’ But are you really going to remember to carry them around in your pocket all the time? They’ll get crushed every time you retrieve your car keys.
The fact that it’s in a watch, and in a hermetically sealed compartment, means they’re always handy and kept intact, ready for that dire, life-threatening situation—that will probably never arrive.
And you could always swap them for a couple of Paracetamols. We may never find ourselves in a Bear Grylls-type scenario but we all get a migraine now and again.
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