The Ineos Grenadier Is Too Old-School for Its Own Good

It is extremely difficult to not be charmed by the Ineos Grenadier’s old-school persona at a glance. That’s deeply intentional; When Ineos chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe couldn’t buy the rights to produce the original Defender after Land Rover discontinued the model in 2016, he simply decided to replace it. That explains the Landie-like two-box styling, squared-off wheel arches, and a full-time four-wheel-drive system. It looks like a 1990s Defender 110 with a dash of Cyberpunk 2077 thrown in, and it turns heads.

Inside, the retro inspiration becomes even clearer. There’s a 12.3-inch touchscreen perched atop the center console that doubles as a gauge cluster and infotainment system. Aside from that, every feature is controlled via knobs and switches. Even the ceiling is blanketed in a variety of toggles for both factory features and aftermarket add-ons—adding in a set of roof-mounted lights controlled by OEM switches is virtually plug-and-play in the Grenadier. It’s more Boeing flight deck than modern vehicle, and for those exhausted by haptic feedback and capacitive touchpoints, the Grenadier’s interior will be a rare respite from modernization.

The interior is, thankfully, vastly more comfortable than an original Defender, thanks in large part to some pleasant Recaro seats. Far roomier, too. Unlike a modern Rover, there is no luxury to be found in the Grenadier. This truck’s interior is constructed from hard, easy-to-wipe-down plastics and vinyls. Luckily, the Grenadier’s taste for utility means it also retains the old Defender’s excellent sight lines, which make a cinch of both tricky wheel placements and tight parking spots. 

Unfortunately, the Grenadier’s unobtrusive single center screen does triple duty—vehicle inclination/tip, infotainment, and the instrument cluster are all contained within it. Only the Christmas-tree lights are directly in front of the driver. The screen’s relatively low and close placement in the cabin made it a pain to continually glance rightward at the speedo while cruising. 

The speedo climbs quickly nonetheless; American-spec Grenadiers get a BMW-sourced 3.0-liter turbocharged straight-six (the exact same one found under the hood of the Toyota Supra). The Bimmer power plant puts out 286 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque, and is tuned for extra grunt at low RPM. Power is directed through a ZF-built eight-speed automatic and a Tremec four-wheel-drive transfer case with a 2.5:1 low-range gear. While the 5,875-pound SUV isn’t quick, power is adequate and the proven components go a long way toward assuaging new-manufacturer anxieties.

Once up to speed, however, I found the Grenadier unsettling to drive. The disdain for modernization runs deep at Ineos. This truck uses recirculating ball steering, rather than a more modern rack-and-pinion system, which means it doesn’t transmit forces as abruptly through the wheel (thereby making hard-core offroading easier). Unfortunately, that means it’s also wildly vague on-center and in corners, and the 3.85 turns it takes to go from lock to lock—combined with the fact the steering wheel doesn’t naturally return to center—makes it wickedly difficult to keep centered in its lane at anything above 35 miles per hour.

Steering feel is inferior to a modern Jeep Wrangler (which also uses a recirculating ball mechanism), and it’s unbecoming of a truck with a base price north of $70,000. There is no added maneuverability benefit for this clumsy steering, either: the Grenadier still has a gargantuan 44-foot 3-inch turning circle, almost five feet wider than a four-door Wrangler. 

The Grenadier is underpinned by ladder frame construction and a pair of solid axles. While these aren’t a negative in themselves—they’re an incredible boon for off-roading, after all—the shock and spring tuning is on the stiffer side, exacerbating the traditional—and uncomfortable—body-on-frame truck feeling of crashing over bumps. Combine this with some hefty wind noise, makes the Grenadier about as exhausting to drive as an old-school 4×4.

I drove the Grenadier back-to-back with a Lexus GX550, and while on paper they’re competitors—the Grenadier I tested cost $85,455, $4,000 more than a fully-loaded GX Overtrail+—the Ineos felt like a truck built three decades before the Lexus. 

It’s not an entirely fair comparison. Despite the ladder frame and solid axles, the Grenadier boasts considerable improvements over its Defender inspiration—vastly more robust body construction, five-link suspension, kingpin axle knuckles— and it is in theory vastly more durable than the Lexus I compared it with, but none of these improvements are noticeable on the street. 

But as Ratcliffe pointed out at the Grenadier’s launch, the truck’s development “started by identifying a gap in the market, abandoned by a number of manufacturers, for a utilitarian off-road vehicle,” not by trying to build a posh mall-crawler. Admittedly, it does feel at home off-road—even though the test course I drove on was far too mild to make full use of its capabilities. 

The Grenadier does have a spec sheet to back up serious overlanding performance, with full-time all-wheel-drive and a locking center, front, and rear diff, in addition to that Tremec low-range box. Approach and departure angles indicate it could handle much more than the rolling hills and mud that I took it through, with 36.2 degrees up front and 36.1 degrees out back. Ground clearance is similarly excellent at 10.4 inches, and its maximum wading depth is 31.5 inches—all numbers that can compete with, or outright beat, some of the most intense off-road vehicles you can buy, including the new Defender and the Mercedes G-Wagen. 

Many prospective Grenadier buyers will also be pleased to know that Ineos is helping rural mechanics learn how to wrench on its new truck, and is freely inviting aftermarket companies to develop parts for it. This is a crucial part of what could make the Grenadier usable as a long-distance overlander, as even classic Defender owners can find themselves without knowledgeable mechanics in extremely rural Africa and Asia. 

There’s no disputing that Ineos built a unique and interesting truck. Indeed, the Grenadier is a vast improvement over the original Land Rover Defender, and for those seeking to boogie down backroads in Tanzania for months at a time, it might actually be a viable choice. But for American buyers seeking a fun weekender to hit the trails in, there’s a reason we don’t make them like we used to.