► Production version of new 4×4 driven on and off road
► Petrol and diesel engines from BMW
► Traditional looks and proven off-roading tech
It’s fair to say that Ineos hasn’t had the easiest of times since it launched the Grenadier. Production delays have hit it hard and the reviews on the cars themselves have been mixed. But it’s now available in four variants which, combined with production ramping back up, should give the brand a boost.
Those variants run to: the Station Wagon with five seats; a Utility with five seats and a bulkhead between the boot and passenger compartment; the Commercial with two seats and a massive boot, and the Quartermaster, which gets five seats and a pick-up rear bay.
Despite all the criticism, you can’t deny that Ineos has built exactly what it set out to build: a new car in the spirit of the old Land Rover Defender. That was discontinued in 2016, and there’s a long list of reasons why it was discontinued. Ineos boss Sir Jim Ratcliffe wasn’t much interested in those reasons, because they were mostly about the car’s lack of on-road sophistication. Sir Jim is a keen off-roader, and in that sense he’s built a car for himself, and (if his projections are correct) for the many thousands of others who share his tastes.
So let’s be clear about what this car is, and about who you are. If you’ve driven a G-prefixed Mercedes or a Q-model Audi or any of BMW’s fine X-cars you might think you’re a 4×4 type of person, a maverick soul looking for adventure. Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads! But those premium SUVs are all essentially road cars with some off-road ability. The Grenadier flips the equation around. Where compromises have needed making, they’ve been made in favour of off-road ability. When you’re in the Outback or the Namibian desert or throwing up some rooster tails through volcanic ash, you’ll be delighted that the Grenadier is so tough and so simple. But on the M1 or the North Circular or the A66… not so much.
At a glance
Pros: Incredible off-road ability, utility styling, rugged interior layout, raised seating position
Cons: On-road manners, poor turning circle, thirsty diesel
What’s new?
Everything. This is an all-new car that’s been designed and built by Ineos from the ground up. Built at the old Smart factory in Hambach in France, it uses a steel ladder-frame chassis as opposed to the Defender’s mainly aluminium monocoque. The construction of both tells you all you need to know about where each is targeted.
What are the specs?
Two engine choices are available, either a petrol or diesel, both straight sixes and running with 282bhp or 246bhp respectively. All variants bar the Quartermaster have the same wheelbase and mechanical fundamentals.
The traditional SUV is the five-seat Station Wagon. This follows the same general format as the Mercedes G-Class and current Land Rover Defender 110. The boot capacity is 1152 litres, or 2035 litres with the split-folding rear seat down.
Then there is the Utility Wagon version, aimed more at people who use their Grenadier for work. It has blanked-out rear windows and a more spartan loadbay, with 2088 litres of luggage space. (In some markets there’s also a five-seat Utility Wagon, which has 1255 litres of carrying capacity, and slightly less rear passenger room than the Station Wagon.) The Commercial gets the biggest boot, a vast square opening that is designed to fit a Euro-sized pallet.
The Station Wagon is offered in a variety of trim levels, and there are many options that can be bought individually or in packs. Two special editions are named after rugged off-road motorcycle jackets made by Belstaff, a company owned by Ineos. The Fieldmaster version includes pop-up ‘safari’ sunroofs above driver and front passenger, heated front seats and leather upholstery. The Trialmaster version is for extreme off-roading, with a snorkel, 17in alloy wheels, front and rear diff locks and a rear-mounted ladder for easy roof access.
In the UK, Grenadier prices start at £62,316 for the Commercial and £68,640 for the Station Wagon (the same for petrol and diesel), with the Utility sitting between the two.
How does it drive?
That depends which engine you have and where you’re driving. It also depends on your expectations. If your idea of what an SUV should be like is shaped by the BMW X5 or current Defender, you’re likely to find the Grenadier a bit basic on road, and a bit slow. And whatever your expectations, the steering is oddly light and imprecise. But the on-road ride quality is very good, it’s not noisy in the cabin, and the (manually adjustable) seats are comfortable.
On our two-day test, first impressions are not great. Within a couple of miles it’s apparent that the front wipers are poorly designed, leaving a large dirty area next to the A-pillar, which itself is on the chunky side, obscuring a ridiculous amount of the driver’s view. When the low sun breaks through, lowering the visor makes even more of the shallow screen useless.
And the rear view via the central mirror is even worse, as the funky off-centre split of the rear doors blocks your sight of much of the road behind, and the dismal rear wiper arc is unduly concerned with glass that is covered by the spare wheel.
On the road, where the steering feels both light and fidgety, the diesel engine of our first test car feels unsettled, changing gear through the eight-speed auto ‘box with excessive frequency. Which is all a bit odd, as the 3.0-litre six-cylinder BMW engine is a proven unit that does not feel like this in other applications.
Things start to improve when we go off-road, and the weather gets worse. The Grenadier’s permanent all-wheel drive, helped by a hill descent control system, locking centre differential, optional locking front and rear diffs and other electronic aids, works wonders: down a steep and slippery slope to a beach, then along the beach – its rocks strewn with hazardous seaweed – then back up the increasingly deep-rutted and gloopy slope, it’s quite amazing what it can do.
That first day, spent entirely in the diesel, ends with mixed feelings. But the second day – again, a mix of on and off road, but this time with a couple of faster road stretches – is spent in petrol versions. It’s quite a transformation. Yes, the steering still isn’t quite right for road use, and a change of engine obviously doesn’t fix the rotten wipers. But it’s so much smoother, more responsive and seemingly better co-ordinated with the transmission. Off-road, where you might reasonably expect a petrol engine to suffer by comparison with the inherently torquier diesel, it doesn’t feel in any way not up to the task.
There’s nothing so extreme as the beach climb in day two’s off-roading, but there’s mile after mile of bumpy, narrow tracks, often crossed by streams. You could do some of this in a regular car, but only if you were planning to scrap the car later that day. The Grenadier feels very much at home here, taking care of a semi-competent driver who keeps getting distracted by the view.
The figures don’t really tell the story: 0-62mph in 8.6sec for the petrol rather than 9.9sec for the diesel, and a top speed of 99mph in both cases. On the road, the petrol feels significantly quicker and more enjoyable. Neither version is notably economical: 18.9-19.6mpg for the petrol; 23.1-26.9mpg for the diesel.
What about the interior?
It’s not fancy inside. The basic Grenadier cabin is designed to get muddy as you go about your business or pleasure, and then wiped down at your leisure. There’s a conventional handbrake, chunky buttons designed for glove-wearing drivers, and an old-school lever for engaging the central diff lock and switching between high and low gear sets.
It comes with cloth, vinyl and plastic, rather than wood and leather, although leather is available. It looks traditional, low-tech and simple although there’s actually more going on than meets the eye.
There are USB slots front and rear. And it’s easy to miss at first glance, but there’s a rotary controller that turns out to be the Ineos badge-engineered version of the BMW iDrive controller. The iDrive operating system is tried and trusted, and makes it easy to adjust nav, entertainment and other functions. But there are also far more buttons than you’ll find in any current BMW.
Some of those buttons are on the overhead control panel built into the roof. It’s one of several Grenadier features inspired more by boats and planes than by other cars, and it both looks good and is easy to use. It houses buttons and switches for functions that you won’t engage at speed, such as the optional front and rear diff locks, off-road mode and downhill assist.
The small screen in front of the driver is only for warning lights, for instance reminding you that you have the diff locked. Everything else is in the central screen.
There are buttons on the steering wheel, but not too many. And they include one marked ‘toot’, which is a low-volume parp on the horn to let cyclists know you’re there. From the driver’s seat, it’s a lot like a less-fancy G-Class.
What do farmers think?
Like a care in the community package for a bunch of agricultural types, we took a Grenadier Commercial to meet a bunch of farmers to see whether it stacked up against their more usual fare of pick-ups and Land Rovers. This is the market the Grenadier has to crack, with farmers’ focuses on cost, reliability and practicality.
It’s also a market that has shifted with the times, as the mainly arable farmers that we met now demand a car that works both on- and off-road. Says one: ‘I’d have one of these but only if it was the right money. £70k is too much – I can justify that on a Defender because it’s so good on-road and can double up as our family car. The Ineos is too off-road focused for me at that price. Put it this way – I’d look at a used Ineos at £40k but a used Defender at £60k. Just because the Land Rover is more useable.
It’s interesting that they don’t see this as a Defender rival – to them, it’s more utilitarian and therefore competing against the like of the Toyota Hilux and Isuzu D-Max. Another one clambered aboard and nodded approvingly as he rested his elbow on top of the drivers door panel – window-down, arm resting while he casually gripped the wheel between thumb and forefinger, his was a typical reaction. Having owned Land Rovers for forty years and, in his words, been ‘deformed’ by them, he approved of the Grenadier.
‘I specced a 130 Defender the other night and easily got to £140k. But I still think over £60,000 is too much.’
To a man, they were all impressed by the build quality, the easy to use switches and the vast load space. Everyone wanted to see how it coped with thick mud and it passed easily but we left with the sense that Ineos hasn’t quite done enough to crack this tough market.
Ineos Grenadier: verdict
The Grenadier makes sense if you have a clear idea of what it is and what it isn’t. It’s up against the more rugged SUVs – Toyota Land Cruiser, the non-AMG Mercedes G-Class – and pick-ups like the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux. In that context, where ruggedness and usability matter more than razor-sharp cornering and head-up displays, it’s a brilliantly executed version of a well-established idea.
The fact that it looks so good is a bonus. But anyone who buys a Grenadier just on the strength of its looks may be in for a disappointment, if they really want something for on-road family use. They might be better off waiting for one of the other vehicles in the Ineos Automotive pipeline.
An electric 4×4 will soon be unveiled in prototype form, and is expected to be in production by 2026. It will look like a slightly smaller Grenadier, and have most of its off-road ability. Hydrogen fuel cells are also being explored. And a deal is in place to replace the current BMW engines with mild-hybrid versions at some point.
A double-cab pick-up version of the Grenadier, using a longer-wheelbase chassis, will follow soon. In the longer term, that long-wheelbase chassis is likely to spawn a seven-seat Station Wagon.
This is a great start. Literally and figuratively, it’s a car that can really take you to some incredible places.