Ineos Grenadier REVEALED – the Grenadier goes where Land Rover didn’t dare with the new Defender

The Ineos Grenadier, the ‘replacement’ for the Land Rover Defender conceived by Jim Radcliffe, is revealed, but it won’t arrive for at least a year.

The last few years has seen Jim Radcliffe, boss of chemical giant Ineos, fight to develop a ‘proper’ replacement for the original Land Rover Defender having had a ‘light bulb’ moment in the Grenadier pub in London, no doubt after a few beers.

Unlike the rest of us, Radcliffe is wealthy enough to take his bright idea of building a Defender-like workhorse from the back of a fag packet to the real deal and now, although the arrival of the Grenadier is more than a year away, happy to reveal how it looks.

With no current model sales to protect, Ineos are happy to reveal the finished look of the Grenadier despite much work to do. And it does look just as we expected, with a very big dose of Land Rover Defender and a smattering of Mercedes G Class in its DNA.

Underpinning the Grenadier is a workmanlike ladder chassis – which appears to come from Toyota – multi-link suspension with beam axles and separate coils and dampers. So the Grenadier should be properly old-school capable.

But despite the old recipe for off-road goodness, the Grenadier will come with the latest BMW 3.0 litre petrol and diesel engines and ZF gearbox, plenty of lightweight materials in its body and an interior – which won’t be seen for some time – which will be both functional and practical but bang up to date.

It’s likely to be 2022 before customer Grenadiers start to arrive, and although it’s aim is to be a modern workhorse it looks like prices will start from around £45k. Which pretty much in line with Land Rover’s new Defender, and a great deal more than the car it purports to replace cost – the original Land Rover Defender.