Billionaire’s folly or a farmer’s car primed to replace the Defender? The Ineos Grenadier is a work in progress

The Ineos Grenadier, a vehicle developed by a chemicals company billionaire, boasts two horns and has more buttons than a spaceship.

Rough and ready: the Ineos Grenadier.

When Land Rover launched the new Defender, with its flimsy hooks for shopping bags and underbody protection made from Fisher Price offcuts, many enthusiasts of the old model were jolly cross. They wanted their Land Rover to be uncomfortable, with sharp edges and nowhere to put your right shoulder. They wanted to believe that if the mood took them they could drive their car to Timbuktu.

One of those people was Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the successful and ­charismatic boss of a chemicals business called Ineos. However, rather than simply sit in the Dog and Brexiteer pub with his muddy friends, moaning over a pint of brown beer about how the world had pretty much given up on ­making proper off-road cars, he decided to make one. And for the past few days I’ve been driving it.

Ratcliffe has even named his new car after his favourite London pub: the Grenadier.

Some say the car in question looks a bit like a Mercedes G-Wagen but it really doesn’t. As you can see from the photograph, it looks so exactly like an old Defender you can see why Land Rover made all sorts of legal noises when they first saw the design sketches. And the similarities are not skin deep either. Because unlike all the so-called off-roaders you can buy today, the Grenadier has a full ­box-section ladder-frame chassis, ­recirculating ball steering and heavy-duty solid beam axles, which come to you from the people who make axles for John Deere tractors. An Audi Q7 this is not.

Even the power plant is punchy. In my car it was a turbocharged 3.0-litre BMW unit that ran on petrol and delivered 210kW. But you can have a similarly sized diesel if you want less and enjoy poisoning things. Both feed their grunt to an eight-speed gearbox.

On the outside there are mounting points to which a range of outdoorsy things such as tables and tents and lighting rigs can be attached. And there’s a ladder for getting on the roof. And the top of each front wing is flat so it can be used as a seat, or as a resting place for a mug of restorative Bovril.

Inside the Grenadier.

I particularly enjoy the names given to the various colours. There’s “Donny Grey”, which is a reference to the skies above Doncaster, where one of the bosses grew up. And there’s “Magic Mushroom”. No idea what colour that is, obviously. Many, probably.

It’s on the inside, though, where you get a real treat – 21 switches and buttons, mounted in rows. On the roof. You’re going to see that and if you have anything at all in your underpants you’re going to sign on the dotted line.

There are, however, a few issues. First of all, my colleagues in other motoring publications have been saying it’s a farmer’s car. It isn’t, ­because of the pricing – an eye-­watering $133,000 for the Fieldmaster model. Landowners and the shooting fraternity could afford that, of course, but they might object to the fidgety ride. And they’ll definitely mind the exhaust, which is routed to the right of the transmission tunnel. That means the pedals are offset to the right and too close together. So if you are wearing wellies it’s possible for your right foot to get stuck underneath the brake pedal. Which is not ideal if you want to, you know, stop.

Then there’s the steering, which has about 400 turns from lock to lock.

I’m afraid there’s more bad news. In the course of my week with the car I got a selection of orange and red warnings about power steering failure, engine failure and an issue with the hill descent control. As a result I’m forced to conclude there may be some quality-control holes on the production line.

The absolute last thing you need if you’re planning on driving to Timbuktu is a car that can’t even get round Oxfordshire without having an electronic hissy fit.

It’s sad. I really wanted it to be brilliant. I even sort of wanted one. But I have a feeling that building a new car from scratch has been a lot more complicated than Ratcliffe imagined. I sense that this is a car that could have done with a bit more time on the drawing board. I fear, however, that at some point Jim and his team thought, “We’ve spent enough time and money on this project now. And what we have will have to do.” Sadly, it won’t.

Ineos Grenadier Station Wagon Fieldmaster

ENGINE: 3.0-litre 6-cylinder turbo petrol (210kW / 450Nm)

TRANSMISSION: 8-speed automatic, all-wheel drive

PRICE: $133,000

STARS: 3 out of 5

Clarkson tested a preproduction model, which Ineos Automotive acknowledges had several glitches that have now been fixed.