Production Of The Ineos Grenadier SUV Begins, Powered By BMW
To fulfil its promise to create a powerful but contemporary SUV in the vein of the iconic Land Rover Defender, […]
Monza Staff
To fulfil its promise to create a powerful but contemporary SUV in the vein of the iconic Land Rover Defender, Ineos has announced that serial manufacturing of the Grenadier has begun. Ineos acquired the old Mercedes-Benz facility in Hambach, France, in December 2020, and production of the new 4×4 has already started there, with customer deliveries expected to begin in the following weeks. However, in Ineos, “global supply chain challenges continue to impede production,” although the company said that “bulk customer deliveries are anticipated from early December.”
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder and chairman of Ineos, came up with the concept for the SUV at a London pub in 2017 after Land Rover ceased manufacturing the Defender. The pub inspired the vehicle’s moniker, The Grenadier.
To keep with the Defender’s legacy, the new 4×4 is driven by a BMW-supplied 3.0-litre turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine producing 280 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque and mated to a ZF eight-speed automated gearbox. Permanent all-wheel drive and a central locking differential will be standard equipment for the Grenadier’s first five-seat station waggon and two-seat utility waggon configurations.
After opening the order books in May, with the Grenadier’s base price of £49,000 (about $55,500), Ineos has spent most of the year building a dealer network in Europe and beyond. The Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Australia are just a few regions where you may find one of Ineos’ 200 sales and service locations. Ineos Automotive’s commercial director Mark Tennant said, “We’ve gone a long way since the project took up in 2017. This is a significant moment for Ineos Automotive as a car producer. However, the United States market has not yet opened for orders, and details such as price and specifications have not been released.
Earlier this year, Ineos announced two limited editions, the Fieldmaster and the Trialmaster, named after two of Belstaff’s jacket styles. Leather seats, Safari windows, and tool belts are just some of the deluxe extras included in these special packages. The price of these two variants in the UK will begin at £59,000. When production and sales of the Grenadier begin worldwide, it will go up against a wide range of rivals, including the new Land Rover Defender, which comes in three different lengths, and other luxury and premium 4×4 vehicles, such as the larger Ford Bronco and Jeep Wrangler in North America, with more advanced features.
But the Grenadier has no plans to expand into the premium market, where vehicles like the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and the Range Rover Velar already compete.
It is expected that Ineos chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe will get the first manufacturing unit. When Land Rover declined to offer him permission to resume manufacturing, he came up with the concept to bring back the Defender’s original spirit. Land Rover, controlled by Tata Motors, sued INEOS Automotive because, according to Land Rover, the Grenadier appears too similar to the Defender, which INEOS Automotive denied. The British company, however, came themselves on the losing end since Land Rover, surprise never trademarked the Defender’s design.