It’s been about a year since I last saw a Grenadier in person, but the time has finally come to drive the Grenadier off-road. Because I have a reservation to buy a Grenadier, I was recently invited by Ineos to do an off-road test drive in Hollister (a popular off-road park near the Bay Area). Ineos put on a great event where they had about 10 Grenadiers on show, one on a ramp so you could see the underside, one parked so you could crawl around it, and a handful to drive on an off-road course. They also had tents where you could see paint samples and learn more about the car. Ineos provided off-road driving instructors along with Ineos employees to answer your tech questions.
Let’s just get this out of the way. I am even more impressed and interested in owning a Grenadier after seeing it again. While the cars here are still prototypes they seems to be final versions for the most part. From what I could tell, they are very well built and I did not feel any cheap parts or 3D printed trim pieces. The one on the ramp allowed us to get under the car and really check out the parts and design.
As you can tell from the pictures the parts are heavy duty (as you would hope) and everything is tucked up rather high to give maximum clearance. The doors have that Defender, G-wagon heavy feel and solid thud when you close them. The front seats are very comfortable and the controls feel great. I really liked the center dash display although it is a little weird to only have warning lights behind the steering wheel (no speedo cluster). All of the gauges are digital in the center display which is odd given this car focuses on an analog design principle. My preference would be to have analog gauges for the driver while still having the nice center display. My only guess as to why they didn’t go with a traditional instrument cluster is that they wanted to simplify the design to accommodate LHD and RHD markets. Regardless, it is an easy thing to get use to so I am not concerned. I loved that they didn’t try to jam in navigation and fancy media controls into the digital display. They left that to the experts, Apple and Google using their car integration tech. This means your smartphone will control things like street and off-road navigation, media, and just about anything else through apps. There is a form of breadcrumb navigation built into the center dash without the need of a smartphone I believe but I doubt I would use it much given I have a Garmin Overland device plus half a dozen apps on my iPhone for advanced navigation and route finding.
The footwell in general does feel a bit small. This is because the center console is so large but again, not an issue in my opinion. I do really like the rubber floor mat option with drain plugs. This will make cleaning the Grenadier after a long day of wheeling in the dirt a breeze. The visibility is amazing and the ergo worked well for me. While the front seats are heating they are all manual controls which I actually like. I don’t feel this kind of car needs motors in the seats for fancy adjustments so long as the seats are comfortable which I felt they were.
The only real complaint I have with the interior is the back seat. It’s enough leg room, albeit barely, yet the real issue is that the rear seat does not fold down flat. You can drop the back of the rear seat but it leaves a hump in the cargo area. In my opinion this is simply a design flaw in today’s world. I realize that this design might be to accommodate the aux battery and electronics which are located under the rear seat (which I love) but its a shame they could not find a way to allow the rear bench to fold flat. Coming from an LR4, which has the best second and third row folding mechanisms I have ever seen, I am a little bummed that if I move to the Grenadier I will not be able to have a huge flat cargo space to sleep in or haul with. But with that said I do have an Adventure Van and a Rivian SUV so I certainly can live without this benefit in the Grenadier.
When it comes to how it drives I have to say it is pretty amazing. We took the Grenadier to an off-road obstacle course that I have done before in the 2016 LR4 and the 1994 Defender 90. Not only did the Grenadier handle this course extremely well, I would say it did better than the LR4 or D90. Yes my 1994 Defender 90 is more capable given its size, but the Grenadier is 1000% more comfortable. So when I think about the total experience the Grenadier is a nicer off-roader even if it is technically not as capable. The Grenadier is extremely quite off-road with little to no squeaks. The BMW drivetrain provides plenty of power. The ground clearance was excellent and the skid plates are not for show they are the real deal. We had the center diff locked and the transfer case in low but we did not need the front or rear lockers engaged. The side angle for the Grenadier is rated at 45 degrees which is insane and not something I would want to do anyway. There are not a bunch of terrain programs controlling the traction so there’s no cheating. They did say they are going to add a single terrain program when in off-road mode for the production cars but that is still far simpler than other OEMs who have 3-7 programs to choose from. If you are looking for a rock crawler I would suggest looking elsewhere, but if you are looking for a trail, overland, light rock crawler the Grenadier is simply excellent. I did find the accelerator and brake felt light, meaning a bit unresponsive but again that is something you would get use to quickly.
I was not able to test drive the car on the streets as it is not road legal yet (airbags are not activated on these prototypes). The invite for a street test drive will come later this summer and assuming I can make that event I will share my thoughts. At the moment I am 90% sure I will place an order when they officially take US orders.
Next Steps:
Spring the US MSRP and final configuration options will be posted
Spring/Summer orders can be placed for those that have a reservation
Test drive #2 (street) this summer
Orders start to deliver in December or January
They are only brining 5,500 cars to the US in the first year
They have over 7,000 reservations for the US so unless you are high on the list you wont get a Grenadier in 2023
There will be a dealer/service center for the Bay Area, final dealer decision will be announced later in spring
No final US price is announced yet but the guess is $90k - $100k