Richard Mille’s gorgeous (and giant) new RM 36-01 features a G-meter, for the fighter pilot/race car driver in us all

The oxygen breathed by ultra-high-end watchmakers produces some strange and wonderful dreams. Untethered to the marketing realities that middle-high-end makers such as Rolex, Breitling, and Omega have to content with (price point realism, practical feature set, etc.), makers of $500,000-and-up models often offer absurd notions of what should be sported on the wrist. All-silicon enclosures …asteroid rock balances… and in the case of Chopard’s $25 million “201 Carat Watch,” no fewer than 874 diamonds—everything is on the table for buyers like the Saudi Royal Family or the Waltons.

It took former Seiko designer Richard Mille, however, to come up with an on-board addition to his Sebastien Loeb Limited Edition that makes most of those notions seem utterly practical. To honor Loeb—a career race car diver and nine-time World Rally Championship winner—the RM 36-01 is equipped with what Mille’s company, Richard Mille SA (a division of Audemars Piguet) describes as the first truly accurate G-force meter ever incorporated into a wristwatch. Measuring acceleration and lateral (turning) forces, the meter will measure up to 6 Gs (a condition typically only experienced by fighter pilot in extreme maneuvers). That capability alone adds no less than 50 components to an already heady roster of tech (such as a tourbillon escapement, shock-resisting free-sprung balance wheel, modular time-setting mechanism separate from the main movement for ease of maintenance, and a 70-hour power reserve), and is one reason why the Loeb measures a very considerable 47.7 millimeters in diameter.

Start forming lines now for this $625,000 chunky of wonder, for Mille promises just 30 will be produced this year.