Ineos Grenadier, do you reckon it'll take off?

I posted this on the Defender2 site.

My take on it is. If I wanted to buy a traditional Land Rover and it had gone out of production (hard to believe, I know ) and this was available I'd buy one of these. Ticks a lot of boxes that the traditional Land Rover does. It is NOT a Land Rover but in a world where no traditional Land Rovers are being produced this would do very nicely.
Your man in the snazzy jumper has an idea as to what he wants his car to look like and perform. When he tells his engineers and design team "I want this.", they don't say "We can't do that" they just do it. Anyway I like the concept of it and how they are going about it. It is not being treated like a pariah that they have to keep on producing but begrudgingly do so with decreasing investment and quality control.
To my mind it will be a well engineered and produced vehicle. I am sure that over time when revisions are made the front could be tweeked, but I can live with it as it is. So long as the interior does not get too complicated and snazzy I'll be in the queue. Given the jumper man's ideas regarding how he wants his vehicle to look I do not think it will go that way.

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Originally Posted by ozscott

I think it could be and probably will be fantastic and for many tastes a much more desirable vehicle than New Defender. However it is the lack of service centres that will likely be the issue in this big country of ours. Cheers

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Only a few less than Landrover!

If you look through episode 7 the Alpine windows appear to be just superficial.
Twice as many as a Defender but with pressed steelwork close behind them you won't be able to look out at the mountains......
They would probably compromise the structural strength without structure behind them.

Body panels gal steel with aluminium bonnet & doors, majority of prototypes LHD.

In years to come I wonder if there will be people coveting & restoring the 2A prototypes ?

Colin

PS: From their website
Grenadier vs. the elements

The intense heat of Death Valley, vast sand dunes in the Middle East, the choking bull dust of the Australian Outback, the mountainous trails of Austria, the ice and snow of Sweden. Our engineers will continue to subject the Grenadier prototype to an unrelenting development and validation process, covering 1.8 million kilometres in 15 countries.

I read they are buying in Mercedes engines and gear and building it in Europe close to Mercedes factories to keep costs down.

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

I read they are buying in Mercedes engines and gear and building it in Europe close to Mercedes factories to keep costs down.

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Not quite....

They are using BMW engines and Ineos have purchased a Mercedes factory in France.
The factory made the Smart car but was built to cope with building a large SUV, they just have to re-tool for the Grenadier.

Prototypes are being built by Magna Steyr in Austria.


Colin

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

Only a few less than Landrover!

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I think they will use BMW dealers as the service agents, seeing as that is what the engines are.

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Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

I think they will use BMW dealers as the service agents, seeing as that is what the engines are.

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Toyota still use their own service agents.

Earlier on in the discussion, it was said that they hoped to get farm machinery sellers to come on board. This would give them a bigger footprint and keep the cost down. Fair enough it will depend on just how complicated the final article is but I think it is showing promise. Funnily enough there has been no word that production has been delayed by the world wide shortage of microchips. Maybe it will not be heavily reliant on these, engine excepted.

Bit hard to see how they could avoid it and meet ADRs - thinking airbags, ASC, ABS. But the issues with chip shortages arise for those companies who cancelled orders - those that predicted their needs, ordered ahead and did not cancel do not have issues.

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Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

I think they will use BMW dealers as the service agents, seeing as that is what the engines are.

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I wondered that but its a big ask for BMW Centres to train up their people just for a tiny part of the market (the market that isn't theirs)....and while it might share a single diesel with some BMW vehicles the engine bay and accessories will likely be very different and the rest of the vehicle will be poles apart from any BMW products so I can't see such dealers being that interested (can't see it being viable either). Cheers