U.K.-based Ineos Automotive's Grenadier.Courtesy of manufacturer
It’s fall, which means that when you go outside, you’re likely to see people traipsing around in North Face fleece sweaters, cozy Patagonia pullovers and Gore-Tex jackets in colours even brighter than the leaves still left on the trees. The great outdoors, it turns out, is just down the street.
Welcome to another “gorpcore” season, a term coined by New York magazine to describe the crunchy, luxuriously utilitarian fashion trend that has seen outdoor gear from stores like Mountain Equipment Co-op adopted by city-dwellers who couldn’t light a fire in the forest if their lives depended on it. (Gorp, meaning “good ol' raisins and peanuts.” Also known as trail mix.)
Here to capitalize on our collective hunger to feel outdoorsy and rugged is a classic-looking new four-by-four called the Grenadier from U.K.-based upstart Ineos Automotive. If all goes according to plan, it’ll be ready for sale in Canada in 2022, said Mark Tennant, the company’s commercial director, who heads up sales, marketing and distribution.
This classic-looking new four-by-four could be ready for sale in Canada in 2022.Courtesy of manufacturer
Rugged SUVs — the sort that can climb mountains but often spend their lives in parking lots — are, obviously, very gorpcore. They’re Gore-Tex on wheels. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, before the pandemic, body-on-frame trucks like the Jeep Wrangler and Mercedes-Benz G-Class were having some of their best sales years, according to GoodCarBadCar data. Similarly, the Ford Bronco First Edition – a US$60,000 lifestyle accessory – sold out in a single day.
“Weʼre trying to build the sort of utilitarian vehicle that will work in the middle of Africa, as well as in the U.S. or Canada,” Tennant said. “Simplicity, we think, has value.”
The Grenadier, like the Wrangler, G-Class and Bronco before it – not to mention all those fuzzy fleece sweaters you’re seeing everywhere – is an unapologetic throwback. A passerby could mistake it for a vintage 4x4 from the eighties or nineties.
The Grenadier is being developed around an old-school template: a body-on-frame chassis with solid axles front and rear, up to three locking differentials and permanent four-wheel drive. (In other words, all the stuff you’d want on a go-anywhere 4x4.) All the oily details have yet to be released, but the company confirmed its SUV will be powered by diesel and gas variants of BMW’s turbocharged straight-six engines.
Grenadier boasts an old-school template: a body-on-frame chassis with solid axles front and rear.Courtesy of manufacturer
“The catalyst for the [Grenadier] project was the demise of the old Land Rover Defender,” said Tennant, speaking on the phone from London. Prior to joining Ineos Automotive, he worked at Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Jaguar Land Rover, but jumped at the chance to help develop not only a new vehicle, but a new car company.
The story of the Grenadier’s conception goes like this. Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire chairman of petrochemical giant Ineos Group – a man described by the company as a “car enthusiast and experienced adventurer” – was having a pint at a pub in London. There, he lamented that many major automakers had abandoned the utilitarian off-road market. As he saw it, that left a gap for the Grenadier, which takes its name from that London pub.
Ineos Automotive is fully funded by parent company Ineos Capital Ltd., Tennant explained. Magna International Inc., which produces the Mercedes G-Class, is the prime engineering partner on the project and is building prototypes.
“I can tell you categorically, it’s not a vanity project,” said Tennant. “Ineos Capital, who owns the business, are not doing this for a hobby; theyʼre doing it for seeing a strong commercial opportunity.”
The Grenadier is aimed at industrial fleet customers as well as small businesses.Courtesy of manufacturer
If you’re Land Rover, it’d be hard not to take the very existence of the Grenadier as an insult. Land Rover recently replaced its old body-on-frame Defender SUV with a more suburb-friendly unibody Defender. Still, the company claims its new Defender is the toughest Land Rover ever.
It’s not just you; the Grenadier does look similar to the old Defender. Earlier this year, Jaguar Land Rover lost a court battle to trademark the shape of the Defender, which freed Ineos to go ahead with the Grenadier, according to Bloomberg.
In the project’s early days, Ratcliffe approached Land Rover about buying the tooling for the old Defender and continuing production, but that idea was quickly dropped, according to Tennant. After that, Ineos planned to produce its SUV in Wales. But when the pandemic hit, Mercedes looked to sell its factory in Hambach, France, and Ineos put in a bid. Once fully up and running, Ineos Automotive hopes to produce 30,000 SUVs a year.
“I would like to have one or two direct selling points if we could in Canada, but it’s a little bit early days,” Tennant said, adding that he thinks Canada is a very important market.
While the price has not been officially announced, Tennant estimated the Grenadier could sell for more than £40,000 in Britain, including tax, which translates to about $68,500 here. That’s roughly double the price of a bare-bones pickup truck.
Grenadier could replace or complement a Ford F-150.Courtesy of manufacturer
It will be a niche vehicle, Tennant said. The Grenadier is aimed at industrial fleet customers as well as small businesses such as farms and ski hill operators, he explained, but by far the biggest group – making up 60 per cent of Grenadier sales – will be lifestyle customers.
In North America, he said, those customers are cool mums and dads. “Itʼs the vehicle that they have in the carport to escape the zombie apocalypse,” he said, adding that the Grenadier could replace or complement a Ford F-150.
Just like Patagonia and North Face, Ineos knows that most of its wares won’t actually be used to climb up and over any mountains. But that doesn’t matter. If Ineos Automotive can convince real outdoorsy folks this 4x4 is up to the task, city dwellers and suburban parents will flock to it as well.
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Matt Bubbers