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

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Originally Posted by Tote

Looking at the discussion reminds me of the early days of the D3 section when the sky was going to fall because they came with 18" and 19" wheels.

Regards,
Tote

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First World Problem... far from a catastrophe, yet the line must be drawn.

These design/ marketing decisions seem indicative of a longer-term ambition by LR to pander to urban vanities, rather than to practical needs. For example, LR's offer of 20" (minimum) rims on the New Def D300 is fine for many, but needs to be read in conjunction with the strong desire (and effort/ $$$$$) of many who chose to retrofit 18's - an endeavour seeming crazy to me.

Bullbar is another complicated example. The New Def just seems to resist straightforward accessorisation.

This is my personal reckoning with the ND, resulting in the cancellation of my order, and whose postscript came yesterday: I opened the door of one and, to my great surprise and wonder, electric side steps popped out.

Times have changed.

"Where has the defender wave gone?" - I'd suggest it's gone into 22" rims and electric side steps.

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Originally Posted by Tote

reminds me of the early days of the D3 section when the sky was going to fall because they came with 18" and 19" wheels.

Regards,
Tote

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The 19” rim size is not much more than a disaster for off road work,yet some manufacturers continued with the silly size.There are still very few tyres available in the size,and none in a high load rated LT.

18” wasn’t much better,when the D3 turned up,but the tyre manufacturers have now come to the party.

Although I fully agree on the rim/tyre size and electric step thingy, we must keep one thing in mind. Offroading is a dying thing. I understand from the perspective of australians this is hardly the case, but most if not all markets require less and less go anywhere vehicles. To my great dismay, since I want to travel the world as I have seen it through the eyes of a young boy enamored by for instance the camel trophy, africa has been largely paved, mostly by the chinese. The road to maun for example was infamously bad, today it's a nice stretch of tarmac.

Sure there is plenty of hard stuff left locally but by and far in many locations around the world roads are getting built or are getting better. The places that need more than a pretty soccer moms car are shrinking by the minute :(

Cheers,
-P

PS I would not buy a new 130 btw, for those same reasons :)

Try getting in to my place at the moment! (It's bad enough in the dry, but with the ground already saturated, it has rained all day today.)

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Originally Posted by prelude

... we must keep one thing in mind. Offroading is a dying thing. I understand from the perspective of australians this is hardly the case, but most if not all markets require less and less go anywhere vehicles.

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prelude, you make an excellent point... at least in terms of vehicular access to adventurous places.

Australia is somewhat exceptional, and this is a problem for Australians - clearly it's more commercially attractive for manufacturers to please the global masses, rather than to cater for extremes.

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Originally Posted by Samblers

prelude, you make an excellent point... at least in terms of vehicular access to adventurous places.

Australia is somewhat exceptional, and this is a problem for Australians - clearly it's more commercially attractive for manufacturers to please the global masses, rather than to cater for extremes.

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Africa is just as bad,we were in East Africa a few years ago.Many of their roads are similar to the worse roads we have here,thousands of K's of corrugations,no bridges in many areas,deep water creek crossings,and on it goes.

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Originally Posted by Samblers

prelude, you make an excellent point... at least in terms of vehicular access to adventurous places.

Australia is somewhat exceptional, and this is a problem for Australians - clearly it's more commercially attractive for manufacturers to please the global masses, rather than to cater for extremes.

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One of my justifications for selecting the Defender over the Grenadier as good as it might be is that now and for the foreseeable future 80% of my driving will be on sealed roads to get to 15% of made unsealed roads to drive on 5% of interesting and technical 4wd tracks. If the proportions were different the Grenadier might have been preferred. My current Defender is no longer suited.

Horses for courses!

I think that's good justification - I wouldn't do anything like as much off-road I don't think, though just reach a different decision.

The New Def is very capable off-road, but you wouldn't see it on a farm, or in use by a utility company, or the emergency services, or to carry industrial goods around the place... so it's a defender in name-only. Most users will do none of those things of course, but they may admire the workmanlike sentiment.

Worked for the old defender, hope it works for Ineos.

I'm kind of the same opinion, but then again, my name isn't Harry Metcalfe...


Defender 90 Hard Top real world review. Is the cheapest Defender the best one on sale today? - YouTube


New Land Rover Defender 90 Hardtop 12 month review. Is it a true farmer's car? - YouTube

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Originally Posted by Samblers

... so it's a defender in name-only.

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I guess if Land Rover had given it another name then the conversation here would be slightly different....the "whatchamacallit" wouldn't be mentioned. However, we would still be criticising Land Rover for killing the Defender.

Ineos will hopefully fill that void for the foresters, miners, farmers, Time Team fans and the tiny minority of Australian off-roaders. The reality is that the Defender was an anachronism.

I look forward to Harry's review of the Grenadier!