BACK TO THE FUTURE
Old-fashioned offroader has plenty of talent to back up the tough-guy looks
It looks tough, but can the Ineos Grenadier really do the tough stuff? We’re about to find out. Through the flat-glass windscreen of this big 4WD, the view is a place no mere SUV would dare to drive. It’s like a black and white photo of a stormy sea. The crests and troughs are grim grey mud.
The Ineos factory in France began work on its first batch of 130 production tryout vehicles this month. This is the first of several steps on the way to series production in July, and the British-owned car-business newcomer has decided it’s finally time to let outsiders try the Grenadier for the first time.
But the vehicles they’ve brought to an nearby off-road track weren’t recently made on the new assembly line. Instead they’re older hand-built prototypes that have been used for testing components and systems. They’re not road legal.
Inside, they’re also not what buyers in Australia will find when the first Grenadiers arrive late this year, priced from $84,500 plus on-roads. Many of the plastic parts lack their finishing-touch texture. Dashboard switches and knobs lack proper finishes. Instead of normal seatbelts, a race car-style four-point harness has been installed. There are also a couple of big red emergency-stop buttons and plenty of stickers warning what stuff isn’t working, including the hill-descent control system and the airbags. And the gear lever for engaging off-road low-range is a plain metal stick sprouting from an open hole in the centre console.
Even so, all the Grenadier’s most important hardware is present and correct. Ineos aimed to create a successor to the last real Land Rover Defender (the one made from 1983 to 2016, not the fancy-pants replacement of 2020) and the Grenadier sticks closely to the recipe.
Underneath the Ineos is a hefty steel ladder chassis and there are sturdy rigid axles front and rear, with coil-spring suspension. It’s all very Defender. The body on top also mimics the iconic Land Rover, though the Ineos is wider and longer. There are other points of difference. The Grenadier has a two-piece rear door instead of the Defender’s narrower single door. And instead of the slim skylights that were a signature feature of the Land Rover’s roof, the Ineos has inset mounting tubes designed to hang original and aftermarket accessory equipment.
Under the bonnet of the prototype Grenadier is a Bmw-made petrol-burning six. Maximum power and torque outputs of the 3.0litre turbo are 210kw and 450Nm. BMW also supplies the Grenadier’s turbo diesel engine, another 3.0-litre six, with less power but more torque. Both engines are teamed with an eightspeed automatic from big-time German component manufacturer ZF. Torque then flows through the Grenadier’s two-speed transfer case. There’s also a lockable differential inside, meaning the Ineos has Defender-like constant 4WD. Driveshafts connect the transfer case to axles from Italian agricultural machinery specialist Carraro.
Before heading into the ocean of mud we select low-range and lock the centre differential. Though this Grenadier doesn’t have them, Ineos plans to offer extra cross-axle diff locks as an option for those wanting maximum off-road traction.
It’s soon clear that the Grenadier is hugely capable without them. The Ineos clambers through churned slop, claws its way up steep climbs, daintily handles descents and ambles across washaways. And it does it comfortably. The shock absorbers let the wheels move freely enough to always find traction, while keeping body movements sweetly smooth. It seems likely to be comfortable on-road, too.
The chassis and bolted-on body of the Ineos feel strong. Defenders would creak and groan in tough off-roading, a sure sign the chassis and body weren’t really stiff, but the Grenadier is silent.
With its wider cabin and roomier, more natural driving position, the Grenadier is a vast improvement over the Defender, at least for the driver.
Only a proper test of a production vehicle in a wider variety of conditions will tell if the Grenadier is a truly great 4WD. Until then, let’s just say that the Grenadier definitely is a much better, and bigger, Defender.
Ineos isn’t just playing tough.