The Ineos Grenadier Is a Land Rover Defender Redux

At one point behind the wheel of the Ineos Grenadier, the vehicle nosed down so far that the horizon appeared through the sunroof. Because it was the Scottish horizon, the Grenadier’s porthole-sized sunroof framed some distant Loch a like a painting. I wanted to hang it on my wall.

But because the Grenadier was, in that moment, ambling down a fifteen-percent grade on snot-slick shale, I didn’t brave more than a glance before my heart jumped back into my throat.

We’ll get back to the countryside, but before we continue, some groundwork: What the heck is an Ineos Grenadier?

Picture in your mind’s eye something like the classic Land Rover Defender 110; it’s the one like a Fifties toaster on stilts, equipped with four doors, knobby tires, and an expansive rear hold. Now stir a bit of modern Mercedes Geländewagen into the mix, then sand the edges off. Add in a few modern flourishes: halo DRLs, Apple CarPlay, and a deeply civilized driving experience.

You’re left with the Ineos Grenadier, a new play on some very old ideas.

Those ideas were shaped by the usual suspects in the boxy off-roader segment: the Toyota Land Cruiser, Mercedes G-Wagen, and of course, the Land Rover Defender. The Ineos Grenadier borrows heavily from those body-on-frame predecessors and their utilitarian chic, pushing body lines to the edge of its footprint, choosing right angles where modern design demands curves. As the Grenadier sits before you, it’s quite hard to tell what’s new and what’s old.

That anachronistic quality begs you to reiterate the question: What the heck is the Grenadier, really? It’s emphatically not a restomod, as an endless line of gussied-up old SUVs will have conditioned you to expect. Instead, the Ineos Grenadier was born from a clean-sheet, designed by Brits, engineered by Germans, and currently built in an old Mercedes-Benz factory in France. (Ineos had made some big talk about starting production in Wales, to bring hundreds of jobs to the region, but plans took a sharp turn in late 2020.) Magna Steyr were brought on to consult in the Grenadier's creation. Steyr, you may remember, build the current G-Wagen, once built the Grand Cherokee and even the Pinzgauer 4x4; they know production off-roaders.

Ineos itself, as I heard a few of the company’s employees echo, is the biggest company you’ve never heard of. Many subsidiaries fall under the Ineos umbrella, with its 26,000 employees, 194 job sites, and $65 billion in annual revenue. But mainly the company produces petrochemicals.

It just so happens that Ineos’s CEO, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, puts his company’s money where his interests lie, like cycling teams, sailing teams, the rumored purchase of Manchester United Football Club, and the execution of an off-roader that was dreamed up in a pub and loosely defined with a pen and a booze-soaked napkin. (Ineos is privately held, as you may have guessed. That means no public shareholders demanding Jim explain the huge Ineos logo on the back of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes.)

So the Grenadier has traveled a long way, both metaphorically and literally, from those lines on that beer-stained napkin. Years of development and honing have led to this moment, when about a dozen near-production Grenadiers aimed up an impossible trail in the Scottish Highlands with a group of journalists and writers at the wheel; If there’s one landing a fledgling automaker must stick when building a vehicle that broadcasts supreme off-road capability, it’s this one.

From the driver’s seat, staring down a mountainside which gallops for miles down to that distant Loch, it’s clear Ineos has nailed the Grenadier’s off-road bona fides. In designing an off-roader from a clean sheet of paper, Ineos were smart not overthink it. The Grenadier rides on a traditional boxed ladder frame; there’s a two-speed hi-lo transfer case between (optional) locking front and rear differentials; a set of proven 265-section B.F. Goodrich K02 tires writhe up the slick ground (these K02s are optional, but should be mandatory for any buyers); solid beam axles were developed by experts in the heavy-duty tractor segment; simple “steelie” wheels are available in 17- or 18-inch flavors.

Those simple ingredients offer the Grenadier a wealth of talent for navigating the rutted lines of this Scottish two-track, but software tuning has further sharpened that capability. A switchable “off-road” mode disables parking sensors, seatbelt reminders and the engine’s stop/start function,” allowing the driver to focus on the smooth application of torque required for ambling up a challenging off-road line.

An uphill assist function can hold the Grenadier in place, preventing the truck from rolling backward down steep terrain it’s just conquered, while a brilliant downhill assist function allows the driver to remove their feet from the gas and brakes and select a speed to crawl down steep and unsure terrain. The Grenadier uses wheel speed sensors to grab brakes and apply power with split-second precision. It's a very simple concept (ubiquitous, even, with production off-roaders), but the calibration here is phenomenal.

The result of that veneer of tech laid over all that physical capability: You may be able to see the horizon out of the sunroof, but with the Grenadier’s downhill assist engaged, you never feel panicked. In the hands of a modestly talented off-road wheelman like myself, the Grenadier felt content to bounce along apocalyptic muddy country paths at 10 mph, unfazed. Or it’d play Billy goat up a steep wet gravel trail, the diffs locked and transfer case set to the low range, just happy and unfussed as could be. The Grenadier turns trails that'd make a hiker collapse into a non-event.

This performance was expected. Ineos insist the Grenadier was designed just for this brand of work and play – enabling Scottish estate owners to prowl their lands, or off-road enthusiasts to probe hostile wilderness, or for U.N. aid workers to reach the remote corners of our planet. Of course, the marketing materials would say that, but the more you push the Grenadier’s limits and closer you look around the vehicle, the louder that built-for-purpose line rings true.

The Grenadier’s suspension allows 10.4 inches of ground clearance with a 35.5-degree approach angle and a 36.1-degree departure angle. That means you can nose up the steep stuff without a care and that a Grenadier can wade through water up to 31.5 inches (a snorkel is optional, of course) before its driver considers the consequences of such idiocy. The Grenadier’s exterior is trimmed with utility belts at waist-level for attaching gas canisters, water jugs, lights, racks, storage, or whatever other trinkets the aftermarket will surely supply.

In one particularly considered trick, Ineos inverted the spare wheel attached to the back door of the rig, so that the hollow portion of the wheel is facing outward, with the wheel spokes nearer to the door. A locking door covers the open side of the wheel, creating a small compartment inside the hollow of the wheel itself. There, an owner might store a pair of mucky boots instead of tossing them in the cab. Anyone who's gone out clamming for a day will know why that's necessary. It’s a small, heavenly detail. You see those everywhere on the Grenadier.

On our way back from the off-road trail, I wondered how the buying public might take to a vehicle that looks like a Defender or maybe a G-Wagen but is neither. The flashing lights and frantic waves of passing Defender drivers seemed a sufficient answer. Those drivers were enthused to see a conga line of purposeful-looking trucks up to their hips in dirt and grime. But maybe they looked a bit confused, too. When we parked the dozen-odd, muddied Grenadiers in a parking lot for a tea and shortie break (God I love the Scots), Land Rover drivers idled past the rigs like clockwork, slack jawed. Then they rolled past again for another befuddled look.

Expect a lot of curious, enthusiastic stares if you buy a Grenadier.

It was hard to tell if classic Defender owners recognized the Grenadier as an evolved Defender or something completely different, but a parked Grenadier was always sure to strike up a conversation. At any rate, the smiles and waves of passing Defender owners told me that if you do buy a Grenadier, you’re inducted into the club as a card-carrying member.