FUTURE PROOF
Is the Grenadier doomed to fail before it’s even begun? Paul Horrell certainly thinks so
The launch was social media fireworks. Everyone – up to and including Lewis Hamilton on Twitter – excitedly reckons the Ineos Grenadier a perfect answer to a pressing need. Well not me. I was doubtful beforehand, and now we’ve seen the vehicle and heard the sales targets, I’m even less sure. Seems like an answer to a need felt only by Sir Jim Radcliffe, owner of the huge Ineos chemicals company, and a few of his mates. Famously, it was conceived in the Grenadier pub. Should it ever have gone further than the back of a beer mat?
It’s a separate-chassis working 4x4, the very spirit of – and spitting image of – the old model Defender. A no-nonsense tool. Yet the company acknowledges its success hinges on getting most of its buyers from the ‘lifestyle’ contingent. It needs to be a tool you fall in love with. In the Defender’s latter years that too found sentimental buyers. But there were too few for LR to justify replacing it with the same sort of thing. Is ‘love’ the same as ‘purchase intention’? Many professed affection for Saab and were sad to see it die. But too few did the one thing that would have kept Saab alive. Buy one.
The Grenadier’s straight-six BMW turbodiesel and ZF eight-speed auto are perilously expensive for a no-nonsense
“CAN YOU SEE INEOS SELLING HALF AS MANY AS THE DEFENDER DID IN ITS BEST LATTER YEARS?”
4x4, surely carrying it beyond the reach of farmers and foresters and coastguards. The makers tell me the Grenadier will be pricier than the most expensive dual-cab pickups, which are £45–50k inc VAT. So we’re deep in the 50s before the inevitable cost overruns all new-brand cars suffer. Now can you see them selling half as many again as the Defender did in the best of its latter years?
Ah but we’re going to America too, says Ineos. Well yes, but America now has the Ford Bronco and Jeep Gladiator driving right over the Grenadier’s toes. They have a huge patriotic fanbase and a dealer in every town, plus value dollar pricing. Will Africa and Australia want the Grenadier? They’ll want it right up until the moment they see the price. Or when they remember the Defender’s reliability record. Piggybacking the Defender’s goodwill is a double-edged sword.
As I write, Ineos is looking at buying the soon to be vacated Smart factory in France, abandoning its former plan to build a plant in Wales. Grenadier is a nice British name for a vehicle with a German engine and transmission and Italian axles, developed by Steyr of Austria and built in France.
Sir James Dyson, Britain’s richest man, gave up late in the day on carmaking because he didn’t want to become significantly less rich. Sir Jim Radcliffe is about the second richest, and I suspect his car’s story will be similar. He is no mug, and has committed about £1bn to the project and employed experienced car industry people who refute all I say above. OK, I’d love to be proved wrong, but the corpses of failed startups litter their path.