INEOS Grenadier 4WD Review
The INEOS Grenadier 4WD is giving Land Rover a run for its money.
Filling big shoes can be a thankless task. Just ask the various Top Gear presenters who came after Jeremy Clarkson and his two giggling sidekicks. Or the spinners who followed Shane Warne’s retirement. And let’s not discuss those Star Wars sequels. The new INEOS Grenadier 4WD has chosen a tough act to emulate. The original Land Rover Defender remains a fiercely revered icon; it’s classically simple in design, virtually unkillable and, lest we forget, lends owners an adventurous aura even if the closest they’ve been to off-roading is that time they clipped a kerb in Bondi.
The car you’re looking at – and yes, it isn’t a million miles away from the Defender aesthetically – is the gamble of billionaire British businessman Sir Jim Ratcliffe. If the name rings a bell, he’s currently bidding for English soccer giants Manchester United. And his company INEOS, a petrochemicals giant, has a stake in the Mercedes F1 organisation and owns a professional cycling team competing at UCI WorldTeam level.
Dismayed by the rebrand of the Land Rover Defender in 2016, Sir Jim spotted a gap in the market for a tough, practical 4X4 built to modern standards – unlike the old Defender, which for all its charms felt like it’d been hammered together with rusty nails. The self-made entrepreneur had his eureka moment while sinking a pint at his London local, The Grenadier. As a great philosopher once said, beer is “the cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems”.
Six years and €1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) later, we’re on a remote, wintry private estate in the Scottish Highlands, the Grenadier’s tyres hanging perilously over a 10m vertical drop. The “path” is boggy and peppered with awkward rocks. We’ve selected low-range gear, and now our instructor is telling us to switch into Downhill Assist mode and release the brake pedal.
No, really. RELEASE. THE. BRAKE. PEDAL.
Scientifically, this isn’t possible. The slope angle is too extreme. The Grenadier will tip onto its roof and crush me. But sure enough, it guides us safely to the bottom, and all we’ve done is steer. Uphill climbs are just as assured, and provided the gradient isn’t too steep or the path too mangled, this can usually be done in regular driving mode. The Wading setting makes for confident deepwater crossing, a feature we tested in a partially frozen Highland loch.
The secrets to this off-road sorcery are manifold. Primarily, the five-seat SUV is blessed with tough bones; a stiff full box-section ladder frame chassis, and heavy-duty solid beam axles. Via a manual transfer case, a centre differential can be engaged for tricky terrain, sending the required torque and power to the front and rear axles.
The power plants are BMW-sourced six-cylinder 3.0-litre engines, generating 550Nm or 450Nm in the diesel and petrol versions respectively.
And the reason our teeth aren’t rattling in our gums is down to the Grenadier’s well-sorted suspension system. Switching from muddy tracks to conventional tarmac isn’t the sensory jolt it could be. The quality of the suspension is revealed in a smooth, dynamic ride, the engine marrying up nicely to BMW’s eight-speed gearbox. There’s also less body roll than you’d expect from a car of this remit.
Still, bloopers can be expected from what is, after all, a motoring start-up, and to that end the steering will be too vague for some tastes, especially on narrow roads.
As an overall package, though, and despite being a dead ringer for the old Defender, the Grenadier is a breath of fresh air in a market currently bossed, at the more prosaic end, by the Toyota LandCruiser, and on the style-conscious side by the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen and Jeep Wrangler. This boldness is especially noticeable in the cabin, a wonderfully uncluttered space adorned with chunky analogue dials, and an airplane-cockpit-style overhead control panel. It feels like stepping back in time, in a good way.
But then you encounter the sizeable 12.3-inch touchscreen, displaying all the modern flourishes you’d expect, and a few more you wouldn’t – like the car’s steering angle, vehicle attitude and your current coordinates. INEOS’s Automotive Pathfinder navigation includes a waypoint system enabling explorers to plot their route when venturing into remote areas.
And that’s the rabbit INEOS has pulled out of the hat; as well as flaunting just enough fashion sense to interest the G-Wagen/Wrangler crowd, the Grenadier’s utilitarian heart will seduce agricultural types, construction workers and 4x4 enthusiasts. The roll call of practical brilliances is too exhaustive to list, but just know that this car has a 3.5-tonne towing capacity, 5.5 tonnes of winching power and 2000 litres of load space; there are auxiliary charge points, tie-down rings, exterior utility belts, a rear ladder, and the entire car is built to complement various after-market accessories.
First orders are already being shipped to Australia – prices start at $98,000 – with a dual-cab version in the pipeline. Of course, it’s too early to say if the Defender’s big shoes have been filled, but the Grenadier certainly is no tribute act. This is the real deal.