2024 Ineos Grenadier: Modern billy goat with vintage wrapper

If there were a hall of fame for SUVs, which vehicles would make the inaugural class? The Chevrolet Suburban, Willys Jeep, Land Rover Defender, Mercedes-Benz Gelandewagen and Toyota Land Cruiser all come to mind.

And now a new nameplate is making a bid for hall of fame honors.

When British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, CEO of chemical giant Ineos Group, was unsuccessful in buying the running gear, tooling and other bits to build the discontinued Defender from Jaguar Land Rover, he hatched Ineos Automotive and crafted the Grenadier. The vehicle is unapologetically Defender-like in capability, complete with a body-on-ladder frame made of steel, but also a comfortable, contemporary ultrarugged off-road offering that meets global safety and emissions rules. It resembles a classic Defender in multiple ways — boxy, with a clamshell hood, a flat windscreen and a prominent crease line stretching front to back along the side.

In North America markets, the Grenadier, named after a London pub, will soldier with BMW's turbocharged 3.0-liter B58 inline-six-cylinder engine, paired with an eight-speed automatic gearbox from ZF.

Power is rated at 282 hp at 4,750 rpm, with 332 pound-feet of torque from 1,750 to 4,000 rpm. Other running gear includes a manually engaged dual-speed transfer case, locking center, and front and rear differentials.

The interior is more vintage aviation cockpit than the sparse, screen-heavy panels found on today's Tesla and Mercedes-Benz models.

The whole package weighs in at a somewhat hefty 5,875 pounds.

Output has begun at a plant in Hambach, France, with deliveries worldwide, including North America, to start by the end of the year. U.S. prices have not been released, but in the U.K., the base model Grenadier starts at about $60,000 and the well-equipped Fieldmaster I sells for roughly $87,700.

Ineos invited a group of journalists to drive the Grenadier in the Scottish Highlands and we've rounded up some early reviews.

"Off tarmac, the Grenadier is a bonny, boxy billy goat. With the transfer case in low range, with axles locked, it can crawl up, over and down damn near anything at an ant's pace, just over 1 mph. The short, skid plate-protected overhangs and close-coupled wheelbase give Grenadier superheroic powers of up-and-over.

The Ineos Grenadier has an impressive tale of the tape: 10.4 inches of ground clearance, a maximum wading depth of 35 inches (with snorkel option); a maximum side tilt angle of 45 degrees; a whopping 23 inches of wheel travel, with nine degrees of front axle articulation and 12 degrees across the rear axle. Inside, everything below the dash is washable with a hose. The floors have drains.

Also, through: With the optional snorkel intake it has a wading depth of 35 inches. The Grenadier can tilt sideways up to 45 degrees before rolling over — Oh no, the dog!

It's on asphalt where the compromises take their toll. The tractor-ish recirculating-ball steering system, necessary to cope with the extreme front-axle articulation, is quite vague and wandering on-center, with an imprecision that gets more pronounced as inputs and momenta rise. With 5,875 pounds fetched up 10 inches on live axles, progressive-rate springs and big winter tires, the Grenadier's body motions are non-trivial.

The freshman class has a few issues. For some crazy reason, the windshield wipers don't clean the lower corners of the windshield. That won't be easy to remedy.

In the overhead panel, the switches for the (optional) front and rear locking diffs can be elusive. The system relies on wheel-speed sensors to detect the status of the diffs. This means the vehicle, or at least the wheels, need to be moving to detect, or not, a difference in wheel speeds. Only then will the diff-lock buttons overhead go from flashing amber to solid. Whether you take the high road or the low road, the diff-lock switchgear is awful, worse than bagpipe music."

— Dan Neil, The Wall Street Journal

"The Ineos Grenadier's steering is calibrated for intense off-road readiness, and thus feels poorly suited to average roads with a tendency for the vehicle to wander. The recirculating-ball steering feels somewhat elastic and vague, with a side serving of wobble owing to its tall stature and off-road-oriented suspension. I tended to overcorrect, and it required hyper attention, meaning that the fogged-up windows and tiny rearview got less attention than they deserved. Thankfully, no tour buses nor Caledonian stone walls were harmed in our time behind the wheel, although we did explore the occasional shoulder in order to ensure it remained manageable in that situation. When arriving at our destination, the legally mandated backup camera was there to help avoid crushing unsuspecting hedges.

Despite those minor quibbles, the Grenadier remains respectable on the road. The newly engineered ladder frame is incredibly stiff, the suspension boasting excellent travel for off-road scenarios, but well-damped reactions on public roads that meant the vehicle was not jittery or bucking around even on rough roads and potholes. Throw in an excellent set of front seats (Recaros, by the way) and the drive resulted in far less fatigue than expected, making it a well-rounded vehicle that you can drive to and through the trails."

— Jonathan Yarkoney, Driving

"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 was smart not to 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."

— Kyle Kinard, Road and Track

"As our caravan rolled across the Scottish countryside, we appreciated the Grenadier's superbly comfortable Recaro seats, which are standard with the Trialmaster version. We later discovered these chairs boast great lateral support for both road trips and uneven trails.
The interior feels upscale with its high-quality leathers and metals, but it stops short of the G-Wagen's opulence. This interior puts function above all else while providing a more ergonomic space than the likes of a Jeep Wrangler. The cabin is well-insulated from exterior noise, even when riding on all-terrain tires — and even with available 'safari' ceiling windows. We did note the defroster struggled to defog the sides of the windshield and side windows, which frustrated us as we trudged through poor road conditions.
Ride quality, on the other hand, is excellent. Even though the Ineos Grenadier is a traditional body-on-frame SUV with solid axles, its five-link coil-over setup at all four corners provides great body control and suspension damping. Ineos stressed the fact it skipped over an air-ride setup in the hopes of achieving long-term reliability — and in doing so we bet it saved on development cost, too.
Ineos then let us explore the Grenadier's low-traction abilities on a decommissioned golf course. The previous evening's precipitation created an icy, snowy, and muddy route with varying grip levels. We engaged the vehicle's off-road mode, which disables the parking sensors and cameras via a button located within the overhead control panel. Because this setting disables features that render the Grenadier illegal for street use, activating it requires a one-second button hold followed by a second button push for confirmation.
Approaching a large slope, we used the hill descent control to manage the Grenadier's weight down a grade of about 25 degrees. The surface was covered in ice and mud, but at a set speed of 3 mph, the off-road SUV shuttled itself down with no braking inputs necessary. All we had to do was hold the wheel straight. Compared to other hill descent systems we've experienced, the Ineos managed a remarkably drama-free execution with almost no jostling, jolting, or jerking on the way down."

— Billy Rehbock, Motor Trend

"In terms of the visuals, no-one's reinventing the wheel here, despite starting from a clean sheet. Ratcliffe cites design as one of the key attributes, but takes a dim view of the way Land Rover has reinvented the Defender. The Grenadier is unrepentantly boxy, primarily to maximize interior space, with a wheel at each corner to reduce overhangs, making off-roading easier (and less expensive when things go awry). The wheel arches are the shape they are to allow for maximum axle articulation. The front wings are flat so you can rest a mug of tea or a laptop on them.
Exterior wiring, with exit points to the roof at the front and rear, allows auxiliary lighting to be fitted. A utility rail with a universal fixing system on the doors is an option. A single-piece tailgate would have needed hinges the size of the moon to support it so the rear door is split 30:70. Open them both and there's room for a Euro pallet inside. A lockable storage box is an option.
'There's a kindness about these sorts of vehicles, even if they're working cars,' designer Toby Ecuyer (a former yacht designer, he's now the Ineos group's full-time in-house design boss.) explains. 'Words like faithful and dependable crop up a lot. It's not about grace or elegance. The vehicle had to be uncomplicated visually and uncomplicated to use. They're easy to read, these things, you can see how they work just by looking at them.'
One designy note: the circular lights look great, and they're the same size front and rear. The idea is to suggest the strength of a solid tube across the length of the vehicle. And although there are exterior door hinges, the actual bolts are inside to stop light-fingered sorts from unbolting them."

— Jason Barlow, Top Gear