Richard Mille 72-01 Le mans Classic Limited Edition
Richard Mille RM72-01 Le Mans Classic
Point of note, it wasn’t just Rolex who introduced an absolute smasher to commemorate the centenary of Le-Mans!
Richard Mille, the brand famous for “Racing Machines On The Wrist” is a sponsor of Le Mans Classic, a vintage racing event which runs alongside the endurance race and made its debut in 2002.
It has enjoyed ever-rising popularity ever since.
The Classic runs biannually and has grown to become a bit of a festival slash pilgrimage for classic car nuts.
There are 800 competing cars, 900 drivers and close to a quarter of a million spectators heading over to hang out, and drool over vintage machinery.
Richard Mille has partnered with the event since its inception and has been producing “Le Mans Classic” themed watches to celebrate since 2008.
This particular Classic is the 2023 edition which celebrates the 11th event.
It’s limited to 150 pieces and is hands-down my favourite yet!
As it’s a 72-01 Lifestyle Chronograph it shares the same stats as the rest of the line - 38.4mm wide, 47mm length and 11.6mm tall.
It’s a unisex piece, which makes a lot of sense for this edition as between 2019 and 2022 the Richard Mille Racing Team which competed in the endurance race was all female.
The brand has always promoted a unisex approach to motorsport, and this watch follows suit.
It is compact and superbly proportioned, subtle for a Mille, or at least, it would be if it wasn’t crafted in the green and white Le Mans colours, but that is entirely the point of the exercise.
The case is tri-part and constructed of quartz TPT (Thin Ply Tecnnology) which is made up from multiple wafer thin layers of silica (quartz) fibres that are injected with coloured resins to create a strong and lightweight material with striated bands of colour thats exceptionally difficult to dent or dink. Perfect.
TPT is incredibly tough and versatile material and is typical of RM’s cutting edge attitude to manufacture with feather weight being prized over “heft” and presence, quite the opposite in many cases to the rest of the industry.
The layered quartz echoes the checkered flag of the Le Mans Classic in the same green and white colour-way and this is followed through the rehaut.
This is a limited edition with a very identifiable muse and it has a really crisp fresh feel to it that half reminds me of cut grass and summer, which is an added bonus because while a watch can often look great, the ones that make you smile whenever you wear them are aren’t as easy to find.
It’s a real mood lifter!
The dial has an absolutely glorious asymmetrical chronograph.
It has an almost organic look to it thanks to the positioning of the sub-dials and use of curved arcs and lines to pull everything together.
The sub-dial layout has: Minute counter at 1, Hours at 5, and Seconds at 9.
On the hour sub-dial the 16th hour is marked out in red, a nifty little homage to the 4pm start time of the race.
It is very legible thanks to the three large sub-dials being painted white with green and orange features and highlights.
They really stand out against the grade 5 titanium baseplate and bridges which are plasma treated and matte black which really lets the whitework stand out against he background which makes reading it a breeze.
There’s a black and white checkerboard surrounding vertical date at 7 which is a nod to the starter flag of the race, and a checkered Le Mans flag and logo above it at the top left of the dial - both of these work well to fill void space and further balance the dial, not that it needs it.
A function indicator sits at 3 between upper and lower subdials which displays winding, neutral and hand setting points when the crown is pulled out.
The dial is topped off with beefy lume tipped hands which have been hollowed in the middle so as not to obscure any information on the dial.
Good thinking Batman.
Powering the machine is Richard Mille’s in-house calibre CRMC1 which is a belter that took 30 months of full time work by the team responsible for its design.
Its a 39 jewel and 428 component flyback column wheel 24 hour chronograph that uses (patented) oscillating pinions to connect the chrono to the gear train which in less than technical terms means that you can run the chronograph all day long should you desire, and it wont affect the 50 hour reserve, or timekeeping.
In a nutshell, this Le Mans is as smart as it is attractive.