Grenadier Build - Canceled For now

Well this is not how I thought it was going to end up….but I have canceled my delivery and asked Ineos to reroute my car to another buyer. I am very disappointed so let me explain how Ineos lost an extremely excited customer.

Everything was great. My car was built, shipped to LA, and it was waiting to be released to the NorCal Ineos dealer located in Redwood City. I was suppose to take delivery before Christmas but then Christmas became January and then communications shut down from the dealer in Redwood City. By talking to other frustrated NorCal owners and then finally Ineos I learned that the dealer in Redwood City was not going to be ready to take deliver of the cars or service customers and it was unclear if/when they were going to be ready. I am guessing that there was a dispute with the landlord of the building and/or city permit issues. Ineos offered to have my car delivered to a Pasadena dealer who would reach out to me and organize delivery to my house. I never heard from the Pasadena dealer. I asked Ineos who would service my car locally and Ineos said any BMW service center could handle warranty issues.

But the idea that BMW would service my car when only their engine is used in the Grenadier didn’t sound right so I dug deeper and talked to more people. I found out that Ineos was wrong and that all service would need to be done by an Ineos service center. That would mean I would have to ship or drive my car 5+ hours to get a software update or to take care of a warranty issue. That is completely unacceptable even for a Toyota, but for a new car that has lots of online reports of sensor and electrical issues it is especially risky.

So I canceled my reservation after waiting for 3 years. I might come back to Ineos and place another order once there is a local dealer and service center but I am now running the risk of a price increase or a dealer markup. So there is only a 50/50 chance I come back to Ineos. I love the idea of the Grenadier but Ineos really screwed up and did it in one of the best car markets in the US (NorCal). So I am shifting my attention to my Land Rover Defender 90 NAS soft top (which is a much cooler car than the Grenadier anyway) and will make some improvements of that car to make it more of a daily driver. I will also look into some other options such as the new Toyota Land Cruiser, a used G wagon, a “rad dad” Defender 110, or maybe something out of left field completely like an 80’s Carrera. So for now my Grenadier journey comes to an end thanks to Ineos not being able to launch properly in NorCal…..what a mess.

Grenadier Build - Street Test Drive

As you may know I have made contact with the NorCal (Bay Area) Ineos dealer and service center….Kuhn Ineos. Dave is frantically getting things ready and has been great to work with. This week he took delivery of two test drive vehicles and he reached out to me to see if I wanted to be one of the first people to test drive the Grenadier on the street. I immediately dropped everything and ran over to Redwood City to take him up on his offer.

I have driven the Grenadier at Hollister Hills months ago and was very impressed on the fit and finish, feel, drivability, and off-road capabilities…..but I was not able to drive it on the street as those vehicles were prototypes and not street legal. I have read online from Grenadier owners outside of the US about the software issues they have faced as well as some of the oddities of the Grenadier on the street. There is a software update out this month that is meant to address the glitches many have experienced and I am told that update will be installed on all US Grenadiers day one. In modern cars regular software updates are becoming the norm, unfortunately.

The driving oddities people have pointed out are mostly related to the feel of the steering. The feedback I have read is that the steering feels delayed on the turn in which requires the driver to adjust their steering input. This is not an error, it is actually part of the design. The Grenadier’s design is so focused on off-roading capabilities that they designed the steering to be optimized for rugged terrain such as when the wheels are pinned between some rocks or stuck in ruts. When you are off-roading you are generally crawling at low speed with a lot of force applied to the front wheels due to the terrain, so having the steering too forceful or too precise can be a disadvantage. Ineos addressed this by designing a steering system that is forgiving, yet the byproduct of that is a delay in the turn in when on the street.

Back to my experience…..So Kuhn Ineos is in Redwood City at a building I know all too well. At 380 Convention Way Redwood City there is a building I have visited as a kid. At one point it was a Peugeot dealer but then it was converted into a Chuck E. Cheese which I had some birthday parties at. Then it shifted to a Harley Davidson dealership until it was converted to a high-end boxing gym. Dave and Ineos are converting it back to a dealership yet keeping some of the lounge elements that the boxing gym built out. It's a great space that wont feel like a dealer but more of a club house.

He has a mushroom white and a shale blue Grenadier ready for test drives. They are equipped differently so that you can experience the various options. I drove the mushroom white one. I can confirm that the steering is “odd” but easy to get use to. I adjusted to the steering within 15 minutes so I don’t view this as a deal breaker. It does require turning in a bit early, the lock to lock is rather long (another off-road specific steering design) and you need to adjust your steering input on the turn out. It’s really not that big of a deal. Another observation is that the Grenadier does not exactly jump off the line. On take off it almost feels under powered but as you go through the gears the power seems to fold in. My guess is that this is due to the mapping of the drive by wire pedals. This too is an advantage when off-roading as it prevents hopping on take off when your wheels are pinned which can cause damage to the drivetrain or axles. But when street driving it might feel a bit delayed on take off. I am not concerned as this is not a sports car or sedan. It’s a truck and it feels and drives like one (in a good way). I did experience a glitch in the infotainment system where the screen turned off for a few seconds while I was driving but it came right back. Another example of a software issue that will likely be resolved with an update.

On the plus it looks fantastic, the doors are heavy and solid, the seat are very comfortable, the visibility is great, and the fit and finish seemed well put together. There is a lot of plastic (like most cars under $100k) but it felt higher end than many other cars. I did not notice any squeaks or cracking sounds on this test drive or when I drove it off-road at Hollister Hills. I had my wife in the passenger seat and my son in the back seat, both of which are tall. There seems to be plenty of room in the rear seat for adults. The rubber flooring (an option which you can replace with carpet) is surprisingly nice and will make washing out the Grenadier a breeze. This is the option I picked.

All in all I think it’s a great car for what it is. If you want a do everything, go anywhere SUV that has enough creature comforts without all the waste, then I think the Grenadier should be considered. If you are looking for a mall crawler then you might not love the Grenadier because of the steering, delayed acceleration, and use of plastic. As for me….I am excited to take delivery of the Grenadier and feel it will be a great daily driver, tow vehicle and adventure SUV for the family. My order is for a shale blue version but I have to admit the mushroom white is pretty awesome.

Grenadier Build - Pre Order

Getting closer….I put in my pre order on June 27th and on September 28th I was contacted to confirm my Grenadier was built in August and it is awaiting shipping to CA with an expected delivery in December. I was also informed that my local dealer and service center is Kuhn Ineos Grenadier in Redwood City. I was able to connect with Kuhn’s owner Dave Fitzpatrick and discuss some details.

Dave seems to be no stranger to the automotive industry with a couple of car businesses he owns and manages already. He is scheduled to have a couple of demo Grenadiers in the coming weeks so people can finally do street test drives. He also confirmed the aftermarket parts offered by Ineos will be delivered to his dealership and they can install them when you take delivery of your Grenadier.

He also mentioned that the new software update should be included in my Grenadier before they ship it to CA. So things are looking good for an end of year delivery.

Grenadier Build - My Configuration

Over the last year Ineos as updated the configuration options for the Grenadier. It is believed that what is posted at the moment is the final set of options. Like most Grenadier followers, I have played around with their configuration tool to narrow in on the ideal kit. Rather than listing all the options available, I will simply list out what I believe is the best configuration for my needs and thus what I intend to order.

First let’s start with color. They have some nice options and this is the one area I am not 100% sure what to do. I have seen all of the colors in person so let me tell you which ones I have knocked out for sure. Black, silver, gray, red/brown, green are all knocked out. The black does not really show off many of the design features. The silver doesn’t fit the car well. Gray is nice but a bit boring. The red/brown is not attractive. The green should have been a home run given its a British car but it doesn’t really fit the classic military green or British racing green look so its a pass for me. That leaves white, mushroom (off white), and three different blues.

White

Mushroom

Eldoret Blue

Shale Blue

Britannia Blue

If you were going for a Defender 110 vibe you should pick white. But given I would drive this daily and I am not trying to mimic a D110 I am leaning towards Shale Blue. It’s a medium blue that is metallic and light enough to really provide a contrast for the black trim while also being subtle. If I don’t go with this color I would likely go for white or mushroom.

In order to maximize its capabilities I would get the mud tires, 17” steel wheels, rock sliders, front and rear lockers, integrated front winch, checker plates, and raised air intake. For overloading comfort I would get the full roof rack, exterior utility belt, rubber floor mats, compass and altimeter, LED light bar, Aux battery, interior tie down points, tailgate table, and prewired aux switches. For a bit luxury I would get heated leather seats and the safari roof windows. At first I was going to skip the safari roof windows because they have a chance of leaking over time like all roof windows. But after sitting in a Grenadier with and without this option I have completely changed my mind. They are amazing. They provide more headroom, fit the car well, offer some breeze and light, and each side is manually controlled so no electronics to fail. They also can open with the full roof rack installed yet they can’t be removed with the roof rack in place. Here is what my Grenadier should look like.

Grenadier Build - Test Drive

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

Grenadier Build - First Impressions

Just like everyone else who knows about the Grenadier, I first learned about the car online through social media. That was back in 2019 when there was little known about the car. I read as much as I could find and decided to put my name on the early registration list to buy one. I was able to do that within hours of the list opening up so I have to believe I am rather high on the list.

That put me on Ineos’s mailing list for viewings. In December 2021 I was contacted with the opportunity to view (not drive) a prototype Grenadier in San Francisco. So on January 27th 2022 I went to the Mission District to check out the Grenadier in an art gallery during a private showing. Here are the photos from that event along with some first impressions.

This particular car did not run and many of the trim pieces were 3D printed so this was a good example of the Grenadier but far from the final product. Overall I was very impressed….here are my initial thoughts:

• in person it looks fantastic if you appreciate the boxy old school look of the Defender or G-wagon

• I think the footprint (wheelbase) is perfect, any bigger and the capabilities would be diminished and any smaller it becomes less practical for a do everything car

• the back seat leg room is ok not great

• the cargo area is ok for gear but given the back seat does not lay down flat you can forget about sleeping in the car when you overload

• the seats are comfortable and the driving position is great (nice visibility and access to controls)

• the ground clearance is great for a car this size

• the utility nature of the design was well thought out by Ineos, analog switches, fewer sensors and less electronics to break down, spray down interior floors with drain plugs, pre-wired for aux power, etc

• clearly the designers have spent a lot of time with Defenders when they designed the Grenadier…..case in point many of the electronics are under the back seat protected from weather and water crossings

• while there is a strong resemblance of a Defender it is NOT a copy, Ineos really blended a few cars together to create something new, you can see elements of the G-wagon the Land Cruiser, and Jeeps here and there

• it is refreshing to see an old school approach to the construction, one that has been time tested for reliability, capabilities, and strength…..bolt on body to a ladder chassis, sold axels, triple locked, coil suspension, two speed transfer case

After spending about an hour with the car and talking to the Ineos crew I walked away more confident that it was a car I was interested in buying. The real test will be when I can drive it off-road as well as on-road to see how the chassis, suspension, and drivetrain perform. But at least at the time of this initial viewing I left extremely impressed at what Ineos was building.

Grenadier Build - Why Its Special

In a world where car companies are using more tech and designing cars to maximize sales, we are ending up with cars that are trying to serve many purposes and thus serve none well. As a driver I too have been part of the problem, always wanting the latest and greatest. What I have learned after owning more cars than I can remember is that when you chase the future you often end up with an overly complicated car that only a computer engineer can fix.

A few years ago I wanted to go back to the simple design of older cars, so I bought one of my all time favorite dream cars…..a 1994 Defender 90 NAS. With virtually no sensors and very little electronics, the D90 is about as analog as you can get before you enter the truly vintage and ancient car era. Unfortunately, Land Rover does not have the best reliability record so keeping the D90 running perfectly nearly 30 years later takes patience and deep pockets. We finally got there but it was a journey…..read about our D90 here.

When Land Rover pulled the Defender out of the US in 1997 and then disconnected the iconic design worldwide in 2016, it marked the end (at least for me) of a purpose build off-roader with a simple and classic design ethos. I guess I was not the only one who felt this way. Sir James Ratcliffe of Ineos was also a Defender fan and clearly appreciated what the Defender stood for because he decided to fill the void Land Rover created by building the Grenadier.

The design philosophy is simple. Ladder chassis, solid axels, coil over suspension, 2 speed transfer case, lockers everywhere, boxy design, and utility over luxury. In essence….build a reliable and highly capable car that can take you all over the world to explore and have adventures. Yes a Wrangler has a similar focus, but where the Wrangler embodies the Red White and Blue, the Grenadier embodies the Union Jack. I look at the Wrangler as a great platform to build an extreme rock crawler, but if you are looking for a true replacement to the Defender it falls short on the “cool” factor. All other modern “off-roaders” like the G-wagon, Bronco, Land Rovers, Land Cruisers, are all highly compromised blends of mall crawlers and trail rigs.

So hats off to you Sir Ratcliffe, you have the means and more importantly the passion to fill the void that others left. The Grenadier could have never been built by a traditional car company and so you did what other couldn’t……you took a simple and forgotten design and brought it back to life. I look forward to owning one of your creations.