The event had been announced for a long time, with a great deal of secrecy, rumors and leaks. We had to wait until the night of July 1 at one o’clock in the morning to discover the nature of the scoop. Was it an anti-covid vaccine? Or a dance floor show in Levallois-Perret? Better, the world would discover the car that reinvents the automobile.
We are used to these unbearable suspensions, these dramatized embargoes that lead at dawn hours to the launch of a new iPhone or the opening of a hair salon after confinement.
Ineos, a colossal British chemical group, had prepared its entry into the automotive world by promising us that we were going to see what we were going to see. It’s up to you to judge if the result is up to the dramatic tension maintained…
For many months, images have dragged on the canvas showing the tests of an all-terrain vehicle whose silhouette inevitably made one think of a Land Rover Defender of the generation extinct in 2016. On this point, today’s revelation does not not disappoint us: the Grenadier proposed by Ineos is indeed a clone of the old British icon.
The idea of its promoters and its designers is laudable since it is a question of returning to the fundamental values of the four-wheel drive, of restoring the qualities of the all-terrain which were diluted in the rise of the SUV. In short, to rediscover a sincerity and an authenticity which have been diverted to satisfy the deviances of marketing.
The approach is respectable and one could not be more clear in its statement: no-nonsense ! After the flood of inept proposals, culminating in the notion of crossover urban, we can only rejoice in the merits of a rustic, utility, honest vehicle. What is surprising is that to respond to this incantation, there is no other way than that of reproducing a model from the past.
On the mechanical level, the Grenadier only uses basic and proven diagrams. It rests on a robust ladder chassis where all components, rails and cross members are generously sized. The body is bolted to this ladder frame. The solutions chosen for the undercarriages are just as ancestral, the axles supplied by Carraro being rigid at the front and at the rear. Concession to modernism (!?): Coil springs …
More contemporary options can be found under the hood with the choice of BMW six-cylinder engines that are mated to an eight-speed ZF gearbox. For the time being, we are not talking about electric motorization or even hybrid. An astonishing bias when you know that – especially on the American market – brands like Bollinger or Rivian have bet a hundred percent on electricity for vehicles in the same spirit. Available in station wagon and double cabin pick-up, the Grenadier has a payload of one tonne and can tow 3.5 tonnes.
The development of the Grenadier was carried out by Magna International, an Austrian company which has long experience in research and industrialization. It now provides marginal series as diverse as the Toyota Supra, the Jaguar I-Pace or the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and in the past, it assembled our late Peugeot RCZ.
First video of the Grenadier in action (3D images):
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The body of the Grenadier takes the same style as that of the old Defender with flat, simple surfaces, without free-form shapes, in order to remain easy to repair in all circumstances. Compared to the Defender 110, the proportions are close. There are only a few minor nuances at the level of the sheet metal folds, more sharp on the Grenadier, the rocker panels, more worked, and the hood, more inclined. Even the grille does not really try to give personality to the front panel. There are of course flat windows and large hinges on visible doors without which one could not speak of frugality. The large Goodrich tires and the large ground clearance finish fixing the contours of the object, which is more suitable for muddy trails than for the Sénéquier terrace.
To “imagine” the Grenadier, Ineos called on a designer who is recognized in the world of yachting, but totally foreign to the automobile. For the firm Redman Whiteley Dixon (RWD), of which he was the creative director from 2007, Toby Ecuyer designed sumptuous yachts for the happy few. Exactly the opposite of the Grenadier… At least, as you would expect. Because we can expect all the drifts. Let us remember that the Hummer H1 and Lamborghini LM002 were both the hardiest of all-terrain vehicles, but also the favorites of billionaires.
If we forget the lack of creativity that led to duplicating an old model, the initiative is not lacking in relevance in a society that talks about decline.
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