Ineos 4x4 ready to take crown as off-road king

I’m pretty sure I don’t have a drop of royal blood, but I reckon I would have got on well with Queen Victoria. In the mid-1800s, she fell in love with Deeside and, along with Prince Albert, established a permanent home in the area when they bought Balmoral Castle, starting a royal connection that continues to this day.

She was drawn by the stunning landscape but also the clean and healthy climate, prompting her to write in her diary: “All seemed to breathe freedom and peace and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.”

Almost 200 years on, I know exactly what she meant and while I’m not sure it can completely put aside the problems of our troubled world, its natural beauty does calm the mind.

While the immediate area of Royal Deeside between Braemar and Aberdeen is stunning in itself, there is even more wild and dramatic territory if you venture off the beaten track. Thousands of acres of it, in fact, much of which can be tackled only on foot or horseback.

Unless, of course, you have something designed for the task.

For most of the past three-quarters of a century, Land Rover has been the byword for wild adventures.

And even now, as the brand has moved into the expensive, luxury end of the market, the Range Rover, Discovery and Defender are still recognised as far more capable than many of their owners will ever demand of them.

Far Eastern brands such as Toyota and Isuzu have tough pick-ups that will take you with confidence through the terrain, but there is one homegrown 4x4 – even if it is built in France – aimed at the serious mud-plugger.

Yes, at first glance the Ineos Grenadier bears more than a passing resemblance to the classic Land Rover that has been consigned to automotive history, but it is a completely different beast, putting right some of the Landy’s inadequacies while introducing a pack of innovations allowing it to tackle inhospitable terrain with barely a whimper.

I had already driven it on road and found it a bit unsettled, but tarmac is not the environment for which it has been designed.

Take it into the rough stuff – in my case, over some of the 25,000 acres of the Glen Tanar estate in the Cairngorms National Park – and it transforms into a superbly capable machine that takes everything in its stride.

To understand what is going on you have to look at the story of its creation.

It was inspired by petrochemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose Ineos multinational empire has been running the Grangemouth complex and 36 other individual businesses, including parts of the Mercedes Formula One team, Manchester United, clubs in France and Switzerland, and cycling and sailing teams.

Ratcliffe is an adventurer and petrolhead, and he tried to buy the rights to the Defender when Land Rover pulled the plug.

When that failed, he dug deep and invested the best part of £2 billion developing his own version.

Apparently, he and some pals drew up the plans on a napkin in his favourite London pub – called the Grenadier, which he now also owns – and took the best of what was available from specialists, linking with development partner Magna Steyr in Austria, BMW for the proven 3.0litre, straight-six, twinturbo diesel engine that

TAKING THE ROUGH WITH THE SMOOTH: The Ineos Grenadier’s ability to tackle brutal rocky tracks makes it appealing to both farmers and outdoor adventurers.