2024 Ineos Grenadier review

At the beginning I marvelled at the Ineos Grenadier. Not for the way it drove because I’d been otherwise engaged when it was launched and had not had the opportunity: it was the ambition. Starting a new car company today is not like it was in the 1950s where almost anyone with a shed and a talent for bending metal could start a car firm. Today, just making a car regulatorily compliant in every major market around the world is utterly daunting.

So, clever chap that he is, Ineos boss and one of Britain’s richest blokes Sir Jim Ratcliffe got others to do it instead. The names of those involved make an entire smorgasbord of the great and the good of European OEMs. The car was engineered by Magna in Austria and is built in a factory in France using the same workers who used to make Smarts there for Mercedes-Benz. The petrol and diesel 3-litre six-cylinder powertrains come from BMW, the eight-speed autobox through which both run from ZF. Brembo do the brakes, Bilstein the dampers, Eibach the springs, Carraro the massive live axles, and so on. Ironically, for a car named after the Belgravia pub in which the idea for it was conceived by a man noted for his admiration for Brexit, major British suppliers to the project seem notable only for their absence.

The car itself is a throwback to another time, all straight lines, beam axles and ladder chassis. If you’re hoping to find there an easy reason to dismiss it, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. You may or may not like the look – I don’t much – but all that tech has been put to remarkably good use. For the most part the Grenadier rides well – remarkably so given its specification and with the grunt of those BMW engines is a pleasant thing in which to lollop down the road. Even the recirculating ball steering, probably the car’s most criticised component, is more misunderstood than misconceived. It’s not as precise as a rack and pinion system, but it’s gentler by far and less prone to kickback when off-roading.

Talking of which, I did spend a day green- laning in the Grenadier and found that on proper off-road tyres you’re likely to run out of courage before it will run out of grip. I expect a Land Rover Defender would be no less and possibly even more able in the mud, but unlike so many these days, this is a car that more than merely looks the part. In low range with the various diffs locked, it’ll grind its way through, around or across pretty much any terrain any sane person might choose to throw at it.

No, at its core this is a remarkably well-engineered car and while obviously not for everyone, quite clearly conceived. Where it is let down, and let down badly, is in the detail as I will now illustrate. The smaller portion of the vertically split tailgate is so small as to be near useless. The absence of even the option of air suspension makes the rear deck far too high to make loading luggage or pets easy and means that if you run out of ground clearance, there’s no way to raise the body off the obstacle. Drivers of right-hand-drive cars will find nowhere to put their left foot. The minor switchgear looks quite cool mounted in the roof like a 1960s airliner, but is so poorly labelled you need to stop to use any of it. All the information is displayed in one central screen so you have to take your eyes off the road even to see how fast you’re going and, no, a head-up display is not an option. The programming of the ZF box makes it hang onto gears too long, there’s not enough caster and, therefore, self-centring on the steering, and manhandling it in and out of low range can sometimes require two hands. There’s not enough on-board storage and while it’s great that it makes you put the key in an ignition slot, they’ve not bothered to illuminate said slot leaving you blindly stabbing at your dashboard in low light levels.

“Its biggest problem is that the Defender is just as charming”

But its biggest problem is that the Land Rover Defender is just as charming, more able for most people most of the time, and comes without such a long list of drawbacks, and I guess that’s the advantage of not having to start a car from scratch with little knowledge. You can hire the best suppliers in the world, but they’ll only do what you tell them to. The Grenadier feels like a car with considerable potential, but when the opposition is so good and comes from such a well-known and beloved brand, unrealised potential equates to a missed opportunity. I actually enjoyed my time in it, because it was refreshingly different, bold and knows exactly what it is for, but that time equated to one week. Owning one for a few years would be an entirely different matter: the novelty would wear off, its talents would feel normal, its faults as stark as ever.

The pity is that having got the fundamentals right and come up with a design that somehow works really well with a ladder chassis and live axles, it’s been tripped up by the small stuff. And the sense not of how good this car is, but how much better it could and should have been with a little finesse is, sadly, inescapable. They say the devil is in the detail. Drive a Grenadier and you’ll see why.

---

Ineos Grenadier Fieldmaster

Price £76,000
Engine 3 litres, six cylinders, petrol, turbocharged
Power 278bhp
Torque 331lb ft
Weight 2740kg (DIN)
Power to weight 101bhp per tonne
Transmission Eight-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
0-62mph 9.6sec
Top speed 99mph (limited)
Economy 19.6mpg
CO2 325g/km
Verdict In the Defender’s shadow.