Richard Mille Gets Hearts Racing With the New RM036 G Sensor

Richard Mille Gets Hearts Racing With the New RM036 G Sensor

Adrienne Faurote
By Adrienne Faurote January 4, 2013

Luxury watchmaker Richard Mille recently unveiled an incredible new timepiece at the FIA awards ceremony in Istanbul. The Tourbillon RM036 G-sensor system timepiece, which was developed and patented by Renaud Papi exclusively for Richard Mille, translates the movement of a small internal mechanism to an indicator, thereby enabling the wearer to visualise the forces.

This incredible timepiece came to life when Mille teamed up with friend and motor sport exec Jean Todt to tackle a serious problem in the automotive world. When we watch F1 races on television, it may seem like the cars are going, well, fast. In fact, they are moving at such incredible speeds that the body endures rapid decelerations. Mille and Todt set out to create a mechanism which would interpret those dangerous decelerations, and thereby created the RM036 G-sensor system.

The mechanism inside this timepiece, which is assembled directly on the baseplate, gives its wearer a visual display of the number of G’s (gravitational accelerations felt as weight) accumulated by the wearer during rapid decelerations. A scale located at the 12 o’clock indicator shows the driver whether their deceleration is safe (via a needle in the green zone) or not (needle in the red zone). The 50-piece mechanism, which is beautifully compact at just 17mm, can withstand decelerations of several tens of G’s. A push-piece at 9 o’clock quickly resets it to zero.

An ultra-limited edition titanium Tourbillon G-Sensor RM 036 Jean Todt version will benefit the global campaign for road safety as well as the ICM Brain and Spine Institute, which Todt cofounded. Just fifteen pieces of this model are available.

Source and photos courtesy Richard Mille.