The Richard Mille RM 035 grew directly out of one of modern watchmaking's most famous partnerships. Richard Mille first met Rafael Nadal in 2008, and in 2010 the tourbillon RM 027 was strapped to the Spaniard's wrist on court, surviving the violence of his groundstrokes. The RM 027 was a half-million-dollar showpiece, so in 2011 Richard Mille introduced the RM 035 as a more accessible, non-tourbillon companion. Collectors quickly nicknamed the line the 'Baby Nadal'.
Despite the playful name, the RM 035 was a serious engineering exercise. Its tonneau case was machined from alumagnesium, an aluminium-magnesium-copper alloy borrowed from Formula 1 pistons and finished with a Miarox electro-plasma oxidation coating for hardness and a deep black tone. Inside sat the skeletonised manual-winding caliber RMUL1, weighing just 4.3 grams yet engineered with a titanium baseplate, a free-sprung variable-inertia balance and a roughly 55-hour power reserve. Crucially, the RM 035 was the first Richard Mille timepiece to earn Chronofiable certification, an accelerated 21-day aging test simulating six months of hard wear. It proved a Nadal watch could be both featherlight and brutally durable.
The line then evolved through Carbon TPT. The RM 35-01 of 2014 moved to the layered carbon-fibre composite and the manual RMUL3 movement, while the RM 35-02 of 2016 answered demand for a self-winding Nadal with the automatic RMAL1 and its variable-geometry rotor, plus the line's first sapphire caseback. The RM 35-03 went further still, adding the patented 'butterfly rotor' and a Sport Mode pusher so the wearer can adjust winding efficiency on the fly. Alongside these came rarities such as the 2017 Americas-exclusive 'Black Toro' and 'Gold Toro', 50-piece limited editions in TZP ceramic and rose gold that saluted Nadal's nickname 'El Toro'.
Collectors are drawn to the RM 035 because it distils the Richard Mille philosophy into its purest, sportiest form: extreme materials, obsessive shock engineering, and an unmistakable skeletonised tonneau silhouette, all carried by the legend of one of the most demanding athletes ever to wear a mechanical watch in competition. As the gateway to the Nadal saga and the first Chronofiable-certified RM, it occupies a special place in the brand's history.
Bedesten Watches has dealt in authentic luxury timepieces in Istanbul since 1999. From our store in Suadiye, Kadikoy, we buy, sell and appraise pre-owned Richard Mille, including the RM 035 and its RM 35-01, RM 35-02 and Toro variants when available. Visit our Suadiye showroom or message us on WhatsApp +90 532 327 88 26 for current stock and prices on request; we accept TRY, USD and EUR.