Getting Down 'n Dirty: The Ineos Grenadier

They say that what goes around comes around, so it was only a matter of time before the ‘sports utility vehicle’ returned to its roots as a properly rugged and practical off- roader that you can gaily throw dogs, sprogs and logs into the back of before driving across a field without worrying about muddying your interior or scuffing your ‘alloys’. 

The man we have to thank for putting the ‘utility’ back into the S.U.V. is the petrochemicals billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose Ineos Grenadier has stepped in where the old Land Rover Defender left off when it was axed by J.L.R. in 2016, 68 years and two million units after the Series 1 was unveiled at the Amsterdam motor show in 1948. 

Somewhere between then and now, off-road vehicles got soft. Exactly when the rot set in is difficult to pinpoint, because it was a gradual process, but it looks as though it started in 1946, before the first Land Rover had even rolled off the production line. 

We’re talking about the Willys Jeep Station Wagon, a commodious civilian passenger vehicle inspired by the 600,000 or so world war II Jeeps built by Willys-Overland and Ford between 1941 and 1945. But while the station wagon and the ‘utility wagon’ four-wheel-drive derivative were undeniably more comfortable than the roofless Jeeps of military fame, they were still lacking in creature comforts. 

Interiors have become so luxurious that the idea of lobbing in bags of manure and a stricken sheep seems absurd. 

Engage first gear and fast forward to 1963, and Jeep put that right with the car that many people say was the first ‘luxury S.U.V.’ — the Wagoneer, a giant of a station wagon built on the chassis of a pick-up truck and featuring plush, car-like independent suspension. 

Within a year, the Wagoneer got air conditioning, seat belts in the back and a padded dashboard, while the Super Wagoneer of 1966 went even further, with a push-button radio, ceiling lights, an electric rear window, an adjustable steering wheel, and cosseting seats that made the average club armchair look like a milking stool. 

Meanwhile, in Britain, Rover car company engineers Gordon Bashford and Spen King were working out how to create a vehicle that was as capable and practical as the Land Rover but with a level of luxury to match Rover’s executive saloons. The answer was the Range Rover. Launched in 1970, it fast became an S.U.V. benchmark thanks to being quiet, comfortable, warm and smooth while also being able to pull a horsebox or a powerboat without breaking sweat. 

Early models had sensible, plastic flooring throughout, a rear seat that folded flat to create a capacious cargo area, and just two side doors — meaning there were no handles, armrests or window winders to get in the way when loading up. Even today, nearly 55 years after the Range Rover appeared, an early model still fulfils exactly what it was designed to achieve. As the years rolled by, however, the trusty ‘Rangie’ evolved into a vehicle that, while being a class leader off-road, became more ‘town’ than ‘country’ — as did myriad rivals from Europe, Japan and the United States. 

By the early 1990s, every car maker worth its salt had an S.U.V. or two in its line-up, and, gradually, they have become longer, higher, heavier and considerably fatter (creating an analogy, perhaps, for the development of the human population at large). 

It’s not just a cliché to say that most rarely see mud, it’s a truism — and the interiors have become so packed with tech and so luxuriously appointed that the idea of opening the tailgate and lobbing in half-a-dozen fence posts, a stricken sheep or a few bags of manure seems absurd. 

All the same, a list of the U.K.’s 10 bestselling cars published by the R.A.C. showed seven of them were S.U.V.s or ‘compact’ S.U.V.s, reflecting a worldwide trend that has made such cars more popular than saloons, hatchbacks, estates or convertibles by a country mile. 

Urban buyers say they like an S.U.V.’s commanding driving position and feeling of safety, not to mention the ability to mount kerbs and traverse speed bumps with little danger of spilling the flat white nestled beneath the infotainment system. Most, however, will never have experienced the perhaps masochistic joy of owning and driving a true no-frills off-road vehicle such as a ‘proper’ Land Rover (as opposed to the New Defender, which, while butch-looking and technically brilliant, is not a vehicle that’s seen in many farmyards here in Devon). 

At our place, we have two ‘proper’ Land Rovers: a 1964 Series II with no roof and scarcely any surviving paint, and a 1987 ex- RAF Defender brimming with luxuries such as a heater, two-speed windscreen wipers and fog lights. The first has been dragging trailers, hay, firewood, boats and lumps of granite about the woods and fields for 20 years without complaint; the second is the default choice of vehicle when Dartmoor’s weather turns nasty, as well as when there’s call to carry 10 people across a river (or back from the pub without using the King’s Highway). Both are slow, undeniably not comfortable, cacophonously noisy and, for the feeble of mind and body, tiring to handle. But they have a character and charm that makes every journey an adventure, and the chance to drive them difficult to resist. 

That traditional Land Rover recipe looked set to be lost for good when production of the ‘old’ Defender came to an end. Hoping to preserve it as though it were a national treasure, Ratcliffe politely asked Land Rover if he could buy the rights to carry on building an improved version. The answer was a slightly less polite ‘no’, so, in true billionaire style, he set about creating a vehicle of his own to fill the void. 

The project was mooted in 2017 at Ratcliffe’s favourite pub, the Grenadier in London’s Belgravia, a historic former officer’s mess named in honour of the Grenadier Guards. Five years later, production of the Ineos Grenadier was underway at the Smartville factory in Hambach, France, which Ineos bought from Mercedes- Benz as a going concern at the end of 2020. (Ratcliffe also bought the Grenadier pub, as well as the off-road-appropriate outdoor clothing brand Belstaff, just for good measure.) 

In keeping with the Grenadier’s ‘built on purpose’ mantra, the 2023 launch took the form of an event labelled Expedition 1, in which a fleet of Grenadiers travelled in relays from the Castle of Mey in northernmost mainland Scotland to the Grenadier pub, where it all began. I took part in the second leg, which ran from Inverness to Glasgow amid snow, ice and bitter cold — conditions that could hardly have been better to showcase a vehicle specifically built to tackle anything that nature can throw at it. 

On first sight, the shape penned by Toby Ecuyer — an automotive debut for a man best known for designing superyachts — appears to have been inspired by the old Defender, albeit with a front end that has more in common with the celebrated Mercedes-Benz G-Class. But the Grenadier is no pastiche of anything that has gone before it; it is a completely new vehicle from the ground up. 

It has a massive ladder chassis, a pair of hefty beam axles, and a set of good old-fashioned coil springs rather than the high-tech (i.e. over-complicated) air suspension commonly found on many less businesslike S.U.V.s. That alone demonstrates that the Grenadier really is intended to take the rough with the smooth, a fact backed up by the three differential locks (front, middle and back) that ensure power goes to all four wheels at all times in tricky off-road situations.

This is the car the ‘old’ Defender could, and should, have been. It’s an S.U.V. that has real character. 

A choice of petrol- or diesel-powered, three-litre, six-cylinder BMW engines drive through a mighty ZF eight-speed automatic 

gearbox with manual override and a choice of high or low ratios. Inside, the cab is rugged but comfortable with a choice of trim options and an innovative control set-up that’s divided between a split dashboard (satellite navigation above, businesslike knobs and buttons below) and an aircraft-style overhead console that houses switches for activating features such as the differential locks, hill descent control, ‘wading’ and off-road modes. 

Additionally, the overhead console is fitted with a multitude of auxiliary switches that are wired to accept some of the many accessories that owners will likely want to add to their Grenadiers to enhance the already impressive go-anywhere credentials. They can be linked to extra lights, winches, external power supplies and so on, while other neat touches that enhance the car’s versatility include stout lashing points on the heavy-duty roof; ingenious sockets along each side of the body for attaching accessories such as tables and tents; and a 2,000-litre cargo area that can be configured in numerous ways and fitted with a range of purpose-designed carrying accessories. 

I fell in love with the Grenadier, lock, stock and barrel, during that drive through the remotest parts of Scotland’s 50,000-acre Ardverikie and Luss estates, where it devoured boulder-strewn tracks, ice-covered slopes, river crossings, rutted tracks, and even a wade through Loch Lomond. 

This past week, having lived with a Grenadier station wagon Trialmaster edition for a week in ‘real-world’ conditions, my enthusiasm remains un-dampened, because (in my belief) this really is the car the ‘old’ Defender could, and should, have been. It’s an S.U.V. that’s truly all-round capable, that has a decent turn of speed, that’s hugely practical, adaptable and not too precious — and, importantly, has real character. 

My only question is: how come Land Rover couldn’t make it? 

Read the full story in Issue 97, available now.