One wonders what’s more challenging: running a globally famous football team or starting a car company from scratch. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s second richest man (net worth – an estimated £13bn), is currently tackling both, overhauling Manchester United while grappling with supply chain issues in the manufacture of the bluff Grenadier off-roader. This is a car which has a cliff-face aesthetic matched by an ability to actually drive off one more or less unscathed.
It’s serious test of commitment for this self-styled adventurer. Say what you like, but Ratcliffe walks it like he talks it — which is to say purposefully. INEOS, just to remind you, is the world’s third largest chemicals company, employs more than 26,000 people across 36 separate businesses, and has 194 manufacturing facilities in 29 countries. The brand is a key player in Formula One, as one-third owner of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team, and has interests in cycling and the America’s Cup. Ratcliffe clearly has rather a lot in his purview but has found time to sail his own boat through the notorious Northwest Passage, ride a motorbike along the spine of the Andes, climb the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, and trek across both the North and South Pole. “Have I ever experienced fear?” he told me recently. “A few times, yes.”
Pumping a billion pounds-plus into a car company is enough to give anyone palpitations. But this is no mere vanity project. INEOS Automotive says it’s on course to have more than 20,000 Grenadiers on the road by the end of the year. That figure would have been higher if one of its suppliers hadn’t gone into administration in the summer. This meant the cessation of production at the firm’s production plant, a former Smart and Mercedes factory in Hambach, France. The path to full car manufacture has not been smooth, ironically for a vehicle designed to succeed the original Land Rover Defender and conquer every obstacle.
INEOS has also suspended development of a smaller SUV, the Fusilier, citing continued uncertainty around the EV market, as well as concern about tariffs and taxation. Rather than increase volumes, it’s planning a shift upmarket in a bid to pump up its margins, courtesy of its Arcane Works personalisation service. It makes sense. Land Rover and Mercedes have both demonstrated the lucrative bandwidth of their premier class off-road product lines, the Range Rover and the G-Class. Together they’re vying for pre-eminence as two of the luxury world’s most desirable commodities – staking out territory way beyond automotive in the process. Check out Mercedes’ eye-popping collaboration with Moncler and a recently revealed partnership with Japanese fashion designer and polymath, Nigo.
The INEOS Grenadier was originally targeted at farmers, park rangers and emergency services, amongst others, people for whom the vehicle’s main purpose is its key attribute. So the pivot towards higher margin luxury might cause raised eyebrows. But there is a third way, and it’s what’s brought us to Iceland on a journey of discovery. The hardcore off-road market supports a thriving ecosystem of specialists and modifiers, catering to a group who always want more. It’s an urge that long pre-dates the vogueish idea of experiential luxury. Welcome, then, the Grenadier by LeTech. Formed in 2009, this German outfit has cornered the market for a version of the Mercedes G-Class aimed at owners who have something more extreme in mind than nabbing a space on Mount Street outside Scott’s.
Now INEOS is on-board, having created two prototypes using Le Tech’s, er, tech, focused primarily on the addition of what’s called a ‘portal axle’. Getting into the nitty gritty here means dropping down an internet rabbit hole that’s probably best avoided, but the gist is that a portal axle uses a series of gears and a housing mounted on the axle ends next to the wheels to increase ground clearance. Dramatically. On the Grenadier, the modifications increase the space beneath it by 7.3in to a cavernous 17.7in, and wading depth from an already impressive 31.4in to 37.37in (1000mm). Other additions include bumper and wheelarch extensions, a front winch, and roof-mounted high beam lights. As on the regular car, there’s an old-school box-section ladder frame chassis underneath, with solid beam axles.
Heavy-duty off-roading is faciliated by a two-speed transfer case with a centre differential, and an additional electronically locking diff on each axle. Depending on what floats your boat, the Grenadier LeTech is either the coolest thing on four — very large — wheels, or the acme of apocalyptic vehicular silliness.
We have a Station Wagon and Quartermaster pick-up to alternate between. Even more survivalist. We start in Reykjavík, where this pair of cartoonish Grenadiers utterly dwarf the regular traffic. It’s a long climb up into the cabin, but once you’re ensonced the view ahead is majestic. This is a car that glories in its large, well-spaced and chunky physical buttons rather than burying all the functionality in a touch screen. Although there is one of those, too. You can operate the main switchgear while wearing gloves, and there’s an additional overhead control panel for various auxiliary functions.
It remains dark in Iceland in winter until around 11am, so we’re already scaling our first volcano before daybreak. This is definitely the Grenadier’s happy place. In this guise it’s running on massive 37in diameter BF Goodrich Mud-Terrain KM3 tyres, with the pressures dropped to just 19psi. On road, even the regular Grenadier on normal tyre pressures can feel rather vague, primarily because it uses a rather old-fashioned steering linkage called recirculating ball. It’s more robust, better at absorbing shocks, and you’re less likely to break your thumbs if the steering wheel wriggles suddenly on particularly rough terrain. But it sacrifices almost all sense of feel, a situation exacerbated by the huge tyres.
On-road it wanders about all over the place, but off-road you’re too busy marvelling at its ability to romp up a steep and rocky incline to notice. It’s like one of those monster trucks beloved of small children and Trump supporters. Better still is the way it tackles rivers; you can simply drive up them, water lapping across the bonnet while the occupants are hermetically sealed within. Not just across them; up them. Amazing to think there’s a regular turbocharged six-cylinder petrol engine up-front, sourced from BMW.
INEOS Grenadier LeTech: the facts
Engine and transmission: 3.0-litre petrol, 282bhp, eight-speed automatic
Top speed: 99mph
0-60mph: 8.8 seconds
Fuel consumption: circa 19mpg (depending on whether you’re climbing a mountain)
Weight: 3000kg approx
Price: circa £200k
Iceland is so topographically diverse it’s impossible to assimilate it all. In the howling winds we watch as waterfalls are blown back up across the mountains. There are roads that seem to stretch out forever, and mountains and volcanoes that call to mind Valhalla. We’re granted access to the black sand beach at Reynisfjara, sand being a more complex off-road challenge than it first appears. We’re also warned about the beach’s so-called ‘sneaker waves’, which can rise up to a remarkable 120ft in height unexpectedly. That’s more than enough to swallow even our outsized Grenadier, one of the few vehicles on the planet that can run parallel with the waves without getting stuck. It’s a genuinely life-enhancing experience, this, a reminder of the elemental power of nature in one of the world’s most abrasive environments.
The Yoda cave, Gígjagjà in Icelandic, is also close by; the surrounding plains and vivid green grasses have been used as locations for countless films, including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (no Yoda in that episode). In fact, the entire place has an other-worldly feel. On the return leg, we stop to walk on the cooled lava from the volcanic eruption that prompted the evacuation of Grindavik, a small fishing town on the southern peninsula. A week later, the volcano would erupt again, the seventh time it’s done so in the past year.
Even this INEOS Grenadier would struggle to keep its cool driving over fresh lava. But not much else can stop this amazing machine, although at around £200k it’s destined to remain a rare sight — and most likely an extreme toy for those who can afford it.
