Land Rover put together the very last primeval Defender in 2016. The production of the off-road icon came to an end and the angular all-rounder, of which almost no piece of sheet metal was completely dent-free, gave way to a completely new generation last year. According to Land Rover, the new generation Defender is not inferior to its predecessor, although it is a car of a completely different and to some extent laced with lifestyle elements. What do you do if you miss the rudimentary character of the ancient Defender? Exactly, then you build such a robust all-rounder yourself.
That was the idea of Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of the Ineos Group, which is mainly active in the petrochemical industry. Ratcliffe sniffed a chance and kicked Ineos Automotive off the ground, a car brand that would develop a no-nonsense four-wheel drive offroader itself to jump into the hole the Defender left behind. Ineos Automotive is now revealing the appearance of the Grenadier, named after the London bar of the same name where the idea of developing such a model arose.
Design
Although clear external agreements with the Defender of the past cannot be denied, the design is by no means borrowed from that model, according to Ineos. The Grenadier, according to commercial director Mark Tennant, who has been in the automotive industry for more than 25 years, is designed in a way that function always takes precedence over form. The Grenadier must be a no-nonsense offroader that clearly shows that it was made for one purpose: off-road driving. A utensil, in fact.
Toby Ecuyer, head of the design team, explains that there is no design element that serves no purpose. Superfluous things were quickly erased on the drawing board. Ecuyer explains to AutoWeek that the basis was established from the start: the Grenadier would have a ladder chassis and rigid axles. This simple set-up should, among other things, ensure that the car can be put back on its feet ‘in a relatively simple way’ even in remote areas, should something go wrong. After the basic elements got their place, a simple carriage was folded around it: an angular carriage with small overhangs due to the placement of the wheels on the corners. “It should be immediately clear what the Grenadier is for. As mentioned, all elements on the Grenadier have a function, from the mounting rails on the doors to the easily changeable headlights and taillights.” It is not entirely coincidental, according to Ecuyer, that there are some similarities with the Defender. “We were inspired by cars such as the Mercedes-Benz G-class, the Jeep Wrangler, the Toyota Land Cruiser and the Defender. Some solutions that were devised for those cars according to the ‘function over form’ philosophy turned out to be smart choices to be.” Interesting features: the permanent four-wheel drive Grenadier gets flat front screens on which you can sit and is equipped with power connections all around for mounting additional lamps or warning lights.
Do not expect an offroader that is nothing but rudimentary inside. According to commercial director Mark Tennant, the car is fully equipped. The Grenadier should also have a modern interior, in which things like an infotainment system that supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, among other things, will be given a place. Also with regard to safety systems, the Grenadier must fully comply with current requirements.
Well settled
The Grenadier is more than just a hobby project that got out of hand, as evidenced by the team composed by CEO Dirk Heilmann, which includes former directors of brands such as Ford, Daimler, Volkswagen, Bentley and Tesla. The company also appears to have tied a number of highly capable partners and suppliers. For example, Magna Steyr will be involved in the development of the car and Ineos will get its engines, in this case six-cylinder, from BMW warehouses. ZF delivers its acclaimed eight-speed automatic transmission to the brand new Ineos Automotive.
Although Ineos has already released the appearance of the Grenadier, it will take a while before the car actually appears on – or rather next to – the asphalt. At the end of 2021, the Grenadier will go into production at a new factory in Bridgend, Wales. Initially 200 people will be working here, a number that will later be expanded to 500 people. An assembly hall is being built in Estarreja (Portugal), where, among other things, various chassis and body parts will come from. The Grenadier ultimately needs to be distributed virtually all over the world, although the main markets are the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, South Africa and Germany. Expect the Grenadier sometime in the first half of 2022 in the Netherlands. For now we will only see one version, but Ineos Automotive already promises that more body variants of the car will be available in the long term. “We have to start with one variant, after all, we are a company that is just starting out,” Tennant explains to AutoWeek. He promises that there will also be a commercial vehicle variant that can stow a Euro pallet. This is undoubtedly a lot of difference in our car-driven country. On to 2022.
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