Day: July 1, 2020

Baraza JM

1st July 2020

I am sure everybody and their security guard has heard about the Ineos Grenadier by now. If you haven’t, here is a quick rundown:

It is a Land Rover Defender lookalike, but it is NOT a Land Rover Defender clone – and no, we do not mean the new Defender with its polarizing looks, we mean the currently extinct aluminium box that was the epitome of evocation.

We have a few detail s on what the Grenadier looks like which we will show you shortly – if, again, somehow, you still haven’t heard of the vehicle yet, and you really should have – but what we don’t have are pictures of the interior. Now, we are not sure if we are supposed to say this but those of us who attended the reveal party of the Ineos Grenadier were sworn to secrecy of some kind or other. We even signed papers. We’re not even sure if we are meant to reveal what we are revealing now, but the secret is already out so I may as well just roll with it.

While we have photos of the exterior (yaaay!) but don’t have photos of the interior (naaaw!), we know a few other things about the vehicle. It is most obviously a full-on 4WD vehicle with all the gubbins that come with it. Despite the Defender-esque phenotype, it is designed and built ground up from scratch, it is not a modified Land Rover. There was no mention of hybrid or electric power, but there was mention of six-cylinder internal combustion from a large manufacturer who lately seems to be sharing their six-cylinder internal combustion with a lot of other people. Let’ see if you can figure out who that is using those few clues (Hint: it’s BMW)

We can also deduce that the Grenadier is coming to Africa, otherwise why else would they invite me to attend the reveal party? And this is what stood out for me: Ineos is a new player in the industry and comes off as a boutique manufacturer… something along the lines of Bowler or Spyker or Glickenhaus… that kind of thing. They may have a “global” market but they rarely concentrate any of their efforts on the continent.

Not Ineos. The list they presented of manufacturers in their sights features marques with a heavy African presence. Their target market covers the gamut from consummate professionals in demanding fields all the way to weekend enthusiasts with unlimited budgets for rig construction. In other words, everybody and anybody who wants or needs a 4×4 and was sad to see the old Defender bow out. If we know anything, it is that the old Defender was a very popular model in this end of the world. Smart business move, Ineos. Also forgive me for the endless Defender references but I just cannot unsee it.

What the rest of you can see are the official pictures of the Grenadier by Ineos Automotive. We even have a video, by Ineos of course. Come early 2022, Covid-19 allowing, we may go as far having a review, not by Ineos but by us… of the Grenadier. By Ineos.

And of course in the Age of The Millenial, no online post would be complete without a video, so have one…