Goodbye Wales – Ineos ‘Land Rover Defender’ Grenadier now almost certain to be built in FRANCE

The Ineos Grenadier looks set to be built in France as Ineos submit a binding offer to purchase Daimler’s Smart Plant in France.

The Ineos Grenadier, Jim Radliffe’s vision of what the Land Rover Defender should be in the 21st century, was finally revealed in July, looking exactly as we all thought it would.

But although the Grenadier looks how you’d expect – thanks in no small part to Ineos defeating JLR on the Defender’s design – it perhaps isn’t quite what Jim Radcliffe intimated it would be.

For a start, the Grenadier is no budget special for Farmers, Explorers and others who need a workhorse, with prices expected to start the wrong side of £40k, and despite the powertrains coming from BMW, which are excellent, it’s hard to see how you’ll be able to fix it with a screwdriver and a hammer when it breaks in the Amazon. But the saving grace is that the Grenadier will be made in Britain. Except it now looks certain it won’t.

Having planned to put the Grenadier together in Wales – with chassis coming from Portugal – Ineos has been seduced by the availability of the Smart Plant in France which came up for sale as Daimler partnered with Geely and moved Smart production to China.

It’s easy to see why Ineos has been seduced – despite having already started work on the Plant in Wales – with a ready-made factory and experienced workforce on hand, and it now looks certain they’ll get the deal done as Automotive News reports Ineos has submitted a binding offer to buy the Smart Plant, which Ineos are certain will be deal done.

Although we’re really rather taken by the Grenadier, a high price, complicated technology and now a ‘Made in France’ badge don’t auger well.