Ineos Grenadier – which CAN look like a Land Rover Defender – engine and gearbox highlighted

The Ineos Grenadier – a Land Rover Defender for the 2020s – is heading on long term testing of its engines and gearbox before arrival.

Last month we finally got to see just how the new Ineos Grenadier looks and, not surprisingly, it looks very much like the original Land Rover Defender with a few bits of DNA borrowed from the G-Wagen.

That ‘Defender ‘ look is perhaps contentious, but it’s no longer the subject of a dispute with Jaguar Land Rover after Ineos won its battle with JLR over the ‘Defender’ design of the Grenadier, so now it’s best foot forward time to shake the Grenadier down ahead of a production debut in a couple of years (yes, that long).

You might expect, as a start-up, that Ineos would have a somewhat curtailed development programme for the Grenaider, but Ineos is very deep-pocketed company so its test programme – expected to be over a million miles of testing – is just as thorough, and time-consuming, as an established OEM.

A new video from Ineos (below) highlights the development work going on with the 3.0 litre BMW straight-six engines – in both petrol and diesel flavours – in the Grenadier at Magna in Austria, aiming to deliver high torque at low revs and be bullet proof wherever it is. Although how easy it will be to fix in the middle of nowhere in Africa we’re not entirely sure.

Whether fitted with a petrol or diesel engine, the Grenadier will come with an 8-speed ZF auto – no manual option – with full-time 4WD, high and low ranges and diff locks. As you’d expect.

Ineos are building 100 prototypes to test over the next year or so, so expect more bits of information as things progress.

Ineos Grenadier Engines and Gearbox Video